One day, in September, it started to rain in Colorado. It rained, and it rained, and it rained. And it RAINED. It just poured. It wouldn’t stop. It continued all day long and just got heavier and worse. Enoch went to school, and as I was dropping him off, I thought, “This is madness. Why am I leaving Enoch at school? Why is school not cancelled? This really isn’t safe.” Against my better judgment, I left him at school. The rain just kept falling, and the water kept rising. One of our friends from church sent out a mass text offering to pick up Enoch early since they were getting their kids as well. I said YES! Enoch was home by noon and thank goodness because the streets were starting to flood and they were closing streets down and most of the streets that were closing were around Enoch’s school.
This lake appeared over by Enoch’s school, its normally just a grassy area. No longer! Mother Nature decided a lake would look better here.
Didn’t drive too close to this curb!
Now onto our basement photos. The wall started leaking where the pipes for the sprinkler system was. All because that area was flooded. I spent an hour outside with a wet/dry vac sucking the water out of the sprinkler system to no avail. It would fill up as quickly as I could get it out. Once Joe came home, he dug a trench from the sprinkler system to the back yard, that actually really helped!
The basement continued to flood even though we had diverted the water from the sprinkler system. Later, we realized the water wasn’t coming from that wall in the basement, it was actually coming up through the floors. INSANE! So the water kept coming up.
And coming…
And coming..
And coming..
And coming…
It just never stopped. It did however make its way to the drain finally and never got above an inch of standing water. I spent most of my day moving boxes from the basement to the garage. Luckily, the kids entertained themselves while I stayed so busy with this awesome project. We actually were very lucky in the flooding department. Bonnie & Lawry had about 6 inches of standing water in their basement which ruined the carpet and a lot of furniture. Some friends in our ward had nonstop flooding for weeks, even after the flood. I felt so bad for them! And they had just remodeled their entire basement! Our neighbor Richard and his wife had FOUR FEET of standing water in their basement and lost everything. It was so sad. They were cleaning out for weeks. 
Needless to say, it was a rough week for a lot of people. The street just west of ours had really bad flooding and all the sewage flooded their basements. The ENTIRE street! Just awful.
We had FEMA come out and check our damage. I think we got about $400. Not much but it helped with the clean up and we really didn’t have too much damage. And honestly, it was a great excuse to clean some junk out so I really couldn’t complain too much. It also helped us organize the basement and a few of the kids toys. I still have a lot of stuff to go through and get rid of but this got the ball rolling. We also rented a dumpster a few weeks later and tossed a lot of trash and junk and yard trash from the flood, etc.
You can kind of see the trench Joe duh in this photo. Everything was just a mess!
Water coming through the windowsill!!! AAH!!
It was madness but an experience. It made me grateful for a lot of things. Friends. Family, a good home, mother nature, we really needed the water!!! It really brought out the love and support of our neighbors, city, state, etc.
September 2013 will be a month to remember for us!
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