Ladies And Gentlemen - The Water Has Left The Building

Day 315 in my “Year In My Life Through Pictures” blog series
(I have been trying to sign in to blogger to post this for a while now. It is now 11:00 and it doesn’t look like I will be able to post it on the actual day 314, but it is because of the blog website. I guess it had to happen sooner or later)


I took my mom back to her house today by boat, possibly for the last time by boat too. The water has receded away from her house leaving an eerie brown coating over the ground. She said that it reminded her of pictures she has seen of disasters like Chernobyl and volcanic eruptions. The brown covering from the muddy waters of the Ohio River did make things look drastically different.

One thing we did talk about was the chance for rain over the next few days. Thankfully it is not a lot of rain forecast and I even told her it would be good to get rain right now in order to wash the silt from all that is covering. It would take a lot of raining again to raise the waters again, so the “little” bit that they are forecasting will be welcomed by me.

The flood waters did not make it into the main part of her house, but did do some damage in a converted garage are that was made into a storage room before she bought the house. That room was also housing the bulk of a NASCAR diecast and memorabilia collection that I had amassed over a few years time. Actually I am little sorry that it was damaged, but in all truthfulness I am not that upset about it. I am much more focused on her getting her home back into a livable state and getting back into her routine. Hopefully I will be able to help her out with the cleanup and repair of whatever needs to be done. I know that storage room will need to be stripped and scrubbed and the plywood will have to be replaced for sure. I’m not sure if the water reached the electrical outlets and if so that will probably require some work by a licensed electrician too. We still do not know if there was any damage to the underside of her house, which could be what would rack up the highest bills.

As it appears right now she was fortunate. There are many others that have a long hard road ahead of them recovering from this disaster. It is a time to come together and show the love of Christ and put charity to work. Not charity in a “I feel sorry for you” sense, but charity as in Christ loves me so much that I must allow that love to spill over into the desire to help out any that I can.

I ask that you continue to lift up all of those with damaged houses and other property. Ask God how you may minister to these people and see where He leads you. It may be helping out someone clean their walls, to pray for someone in particular or to donate money or cleaning supplies to an agency that will adequately distribute to those in desperate need right now. I promise, He will lead you.