Hurricane Season

After living in Florida for 12 years, it's a great feeling when June rolls around and you don't have to say those two horrible words "hurricane season". I won't miss the storms, the warning, the putting up and taking down of shutters, the hoarding of groceries and gas and batteries. No - there is nothing about Hurricane Season that I'm going to miss!!

Ironically though, in all the time I lived in Florida - with all the storm watches and warnings, with being hit by 2 hurricanes and a bunch of horrible "no-name" storms, with the daily summer thunder and lightening downpours - I never once had water damage from a storm.

Then I move to beautiful Indiana - outside of hurricane territory, and bham! We got hit with a storm yesterday the likes of which I have never seen! It only lasted about 45 minutes, and the wind wasn't that horrific, but the rain came down like nothing I have ever seen before. Flash floods in all the major intersections, scary lightening, some trees down - and a flood in our basement. The same basement where my formal living room and dining room furniture and all my still-packed boxes are stored.

At first we thought it came in from under the door, and just mopped it up. Then we realized the carpet was soaked. We decided then that the water leaked in from the crawl space. We got out the carpet cleaner and sucked well over 10 gallons of water out. Hubby, bless him, spent a few hours moving all our boxes to get them off the ground and up away from the moisture.

More sucking of water from the carpet today, and hubby finally gave up and rented a super-powerful shop vac. More sucking of water when he noticed that the other side of the room was also wet. The side where all my good furniture is stored. He pulled away a section of my entertainment unit to find that water had poured in from there, soaked the rug, ruined the molding, and damaged my furniture. Not only was the wall and furniture wet and damaged, we have mold. Oh joy. I so thought I left this all behind in Florida. Not a happy Worm!!

So I called my boss and told her I won't be at work tomorrow, and we'll be looking for a U-haul truck and a storage unit. I think the furniture may be a total loss. It soaked up quite a bit of moisture on the bottom, and I don't know if the mold is a health hazard. We only seem to have one damaged box. The rest seemed to have remained relatively dry. The boxes are all blocking the rest of the wall unit and the dining room furniture, so until we move them to a storage unit, we can't even assess how bad the damage is.

We called our rental insurance company and they'll be out within a few days. I'm hoping they'll cover the furniture, storage unit and rental truck. We called our landlords. They'll be out to assess the damage. This house has never before had a wet basement, and I fear that they have a fairly substantial problem on their hands. I just went downstairs, and there is still a lot of water soaked into the carpet. I don't know if it's still seeping in from somewhere, but they'll have a lot of work to do.

And to add insult to injury, today hubby and I both broke out in hives. Not happy and itchy!! At least the benedryl I took seems to be taking the edge off. It's also putting me to sleep.

So not pleased.

Hurricane Season in Indiana. Who would have thunk?