Wow. Today has been nuts. If you haven’t seen on my Facebook or Brady’s Facebook or any of the local news stations, we are getting flooded like MAD!
I woke up this morning to voices. Very close voices. I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a whole crowd of people in my yard. So I threw on some comfy pants a bunnyhug and ventured outside. Into the snow. And the lake. I was greeted by a bunch of people with completely positive attitudes who announced they were there to save our home! Sandbags upon sandbags were brought into our yard and stacked up high. I asked if I could help with anything, but being pregnant, I was pretty useless and they insisted I just stay inside and keep warm. I mentioned that my husband would absolutely help if he was at home. When it spread through the group that my husband was gone and I was pregnant with a toddler on my hands, I had four guys pile into my house and bring everything valuable up from my basement. Joyfully! Even a big chunky couch. Everything was done with this amazing attitude that made a very scary situation a lot more liveable. They were sooo great! It really makes a difference when your volunteers are gung-ho!
While everything was going on and I felt like things were most chaotic, my friend from across the street came by and lent a huge hand. I was so aware that my house was messy and she just didn’t even mention it, but came and took my mind off things for a bit. At one point I had Global News knocking on my door and Melissa even fed Dekker breakfast while I interviewed outside. And then when they wanted to come inside and get a bit of tape of just Dekker and I being in our house doing regular stuff, she tidied up the dining room so I wouldn’t be self conscious. If you’re reading this my friend, I appreciated that sooo much!
In amongst all the chaos, Brady was trying to call and I just was failing to get back to him over and over, so being very overwhelmed and nervous and not being able to take care of me the way he wanted to, he came home. Which was actually pretty awesome. Our yard was as sandbagged as its gonna get, so he did the dirty task of driving our vehicles to a different street (in case our road was washed over) and hauling more stuff upstairs. My dad even came to help in the evening. They hauled up very literally everything that wasn’t in a rubbermaid or didn’t matter at all. And some friends were loving enough to send a sump pump along with him to add to our backyard. The large water bladders they used as sandbags (in some areas) were leaking, not so slowly, closer and closer to our home, so the boys dug a big hole into our lawn and planted the pump, that is now pumping every 15 seconds. Its insane.
Efforts that the town are making are very impressive actually. There are sandbags and water bags everywhere. There are HUGE irrigation pumps in two different locations, pumping water wildly away, the villa is evacuated and people are being fed in the town hall, volunteers have been filling sandbags all day, etc etc etc. And in all of it, I feel completely useless. I hate that I can’t really help. But our town mayor is incredible and he is out in the mud with everyone else, going house to house making sure everyone is ok and taken care of.
As soon as Dekker went down Brady and I ran outside and got to witness the huge pump right outside our house start pumping the lake away. What a celebration!!! We are now completely frozen and reeeaaally looking forward to our bathtub tonight! And nachos I think. I feel like we will be able to sleep soundly knowing that very literally everything that we can do has been done. There are even guys that are making the rounds on the pumps all night long. We are as well taken care of as we can be. And worst case scenario, if we wake up to water in our basement, we have already officially declared Radisson to be in a state of emergency, and the government will help us all our financially. God is so good! And we’re all doing our best.
On the shopping list for tomorrow: rubber boots. How do neither of us own those?!??!?!