STORMY!
One of the biggest storms has hit the bay area. In all the torrents of rain I arrive home yesterday after work at 3:30 and have no power to open the garage door and don't have a key to the front door. I go to the shed where there is an alarm going off that I didn't even know Dad put out there. I could hear it from the driveway. It was a fire alarm having a fit because the water was coming in the shed. I was cold and shivery and I couldn't figure out how to get it apart. I finally pried or pretty much broke it apart and it finally quit. I never did get to the battery. I think I must have busted a wire. Anyway, after I got that thing to shut up it is still raining crazy and I am cold and soggy by now. I take the two keys I have and try them over and over on the back door. Then I put my coat over my hand and pry harder. Nothing doing. I am not getting in. I crunch into the shed the few inches that I can to break the rain and call Dad and tell him I can't get in and I am going to see if Linda is still home. I drive to her driveway and show up on her porch with soaking wet hair, mud on my WHITE shirt and shivering. She lets me in and before I can do much explaining I have to call the phone company because they were meeting me today to check the phone line and tell them I can't get into my house. I find out she is bored stiff with no power for computers or TV all afternoon and cold. She had been reading but it was getting too dark to read anymore. She gave me a dry sweater and we hung out talking about how we were probably going to make our husband's take us out to eat because we were cold and hungry for hot food. Dad came home a couple hours later and let me in. After lighting candles and Dad had a shower we went to Carl's for a hamburger and it was all warm in there. I didn't care that they took forever to cook it. We sat next to 3 water buckets that they were using for leaks in the roof. It smelled like our kitchen cabinets used to and brought back gross memories of wet rotting wood. When we drove home, much to our delight, there was LIGHT!~!! Yes, first I noticed street lights off of Lean and I told Dad they were not on when I came home and finally we saw lights on the houses. It was all black when we left. Kind of weird to have the whole neighborhood black.
I have placed a front door key in an envelope in my car and I plan on having Dad check out why the key didn't work and fix or replace the lock on the side door. His key worked just fine by the way!
STORMY!
That was yesterday. Today the storm continues to bear down. The pool if filling to the brim and we noticed last night that our carpet was wet by both of the south doors. The storm was blowing straight at the house from the south and the water found its way in the tiny cracks. Dad propped the carpet up and tore out the pad beneath hoping to have it dry out and it remained that way all day. He spent the day at Joshua's working and by the time he came home tonight I could tell we hadn't saved the floor. It was getting smelly. We had a reception to attend so we didn't stay long there and I said sadly "Let's go home so we can tear out the carpet". Dad had to cut two feet into the room before he found dry carpet. The bare floor is exposed underneath and the tack strip had to be removed too as it was saturated. It looks like swelling damage is into the room a few inches and Dad will have to cut out the flooring and replace what is bad before we can consider carpet or whatever we decide to do now. We are considering a rock entry but we will see. For now, it is ugly and reminds me of 1997 when we tore the place up after we bought it.
We have minor damage compared to those who had part of their roofs fly off, trees land on the houses and cars, huge flooding and embankments falling down. We still have power today too which I am grateful for and have been happy to have a warm furnace going. I just can't stand being cold.
