flood

Last week, the day before we planned on taking off to Pocatello for the 4th of July, our washing machine hose broke while I was doing a load of laundry.  I was upstairs cleaning and playing with the kids, and had no idea our house was flooding on the main floor.

When I came downstairs our entire wood floor in the kitchen was under about 2 inches of water.  The laundry room was completely swimming, the hall was under water, the bathroom was flooded and the hall closet was under even more water.  The water was quickly making it's way to our carpet in the family room as well.

I ran into the laundry room, and saw water spraying out from the broken hose, so I turned the washing machine off, and tried to turn the water off that leads to the washing machine.  No luck. The water was still spraying from the hose, and spreading through the house.  I completely panicked!

I grabbed every single towel we had, and also had Sam and William run around grabbing bathroom and dish towels, and we made a barricade around the carpet.

Then, I had the thought to call our neighbor.  In hindsight, it was complete inspiration, and I am so thankful for it.

 He literally ran over to our house. I saw him running over here, from out the window.

When he got here, he ran through the water and down to the basement to turn off our main water line.  I ran down after him, and the basement looked like it was having it's own rain storm.  Water was pouring from our air ducts and vents, and the basement was flooded.

Our house is turned a different way than what was originally planned, so the main water shut off was not in the normal spot.  I had no idea where it was, and no one else would have known either.

Luckily, our neighbor happened to be in another home like ours a few months ago (a house that was turned a different way than planned), and while he was there, he noticed their water line switch in a weird spot, but didn't think much of it.  I like to think that it was God, looking in to the future, and knowing that he would need to see that.

That popped in to his head as he was in our basement, and he was able to cut through our plastic wrap and insulation and find our main water switch, in a place I NEVER would have found it.  It was completely buried behind the wall.  No one else would have known where that was. He turned our water off, but the water continued to spray from the washing machine hose and flood our house.

We decided to turn on all tubs and faucets to drain the water from the pipes more quickly, finally we got the pouring water from the hose to stop.

All I could think of was our gorgeous new wood floor completely warped and ruined under inches of water, our carpet having to be replaced, and our walls full of mold. I was sick to my stomach.  The kids thought it was awesome, like we had all the sudden made a giant splash park in our house, and Luke came running through it, only to slip and fall, smacking his head on the floor.  As if there wasn't enough chaos already. 

My neighbor ran back to his house, and came back with a huge shop vac.  Thank heavens he had one.

I had to pick up Mary from tumbling, and he kindly stayed and sucked the water up while I was gone.  My heart was pounding and I felt so panicked during the drive to and from getting Mary.  I couldn't get back home fast enough.

When we got home, the water was all sucked up, but we had wet towels everywhere, and the laundry room was still flooded, along with the hall closet.  Miraculously, the carpet was not wet at all.  Our towel blockade worked, along with some divine intervention.

I had to clean out the hall closet, and everything that was soaked in it.  It was mostly mops, vacuums and a few backpacks on the ground.  Nothing that was ruined by the water.

Then, it was down to the basement to survey the damage of our insulation and wood.  Amazingly, the plastic wrap had saved the insulation, and the cement floor was absorbing the water really well!  The basement ended up completely fine.

We continued to vacuum up the water, open windows to dry the floors and hang the soaking wet towels out to dry.

I thanked my neighbor about 100 times, and once the last of the water was sucked up, finally sent him on his way.

I was very nervous the next few days about our floor warping, but somehow, it is all okay.  I am so, so thankful!

We had to do several loads at the laundry mat that evening, and while we were out, we bought our neighbor a gift card to a really good milk shake place here in town.

It kind of stinks to do laundry at a laundry mat, but we just ordered our new washer and dryer today, and I am SO EXCITED!  It is an awesome set, with a huge machine that will reduce the ridiculous amount of loads I do every single day.  And the dryer will work!  Our old dryer just spun the clothes around, it took hours to dry one load.  We have been in need of a new set for a long time now, but it just hasn't been on top of the priority list. It is a little embarrassing how excited I am for a new washer and dryer, but I really don't care. It is worth a few trips to the laundry mat for a while. 

I am so grateful that this didn't happen while we were in California, or Idaho.  It happened in the few days in between the trips.  I don't really believe in coincidences that often, I think God intervenes in our lives way more than we realize, and really feel that we were blessed.  Our entire home could have been completely ruined, had this happened just one day later, or two days earlier.

It was a pretty crazy morning, and it was extremely stressful, but now I know where the main water switch is, all is well, and I will forever check twice when I turn on the washing machine!