The Great Iowa Flood of 2009

Our Explorer covered in our area rugs.

We live in an first floor apartment and we have one floor above us(a little background). We went to bed around 10 last night. Z woke up most likely from teething pain and I went to get him...but discovered the floor was wet and cold.

We had a flood!

We were walking around the apartment (poor Z was still crying at the time). I grabbed him and feed him and Rick did the investigation. He discovered that the leaking was coming from above. So he put on his shoes and when upstairs to this older, single woman's apartment at 12:30 in the morning. She felt horrible! They got the water turned off (they said it was a washing machine malfunction) Rick went around an unpluged stuff so we wouldn't cause further damage to our items. I then texted my boss and told her I would be going down there early and not her drop off the girls at my house because of the flood that happened. So we knew it was going to be an EARLY morning so made sure things were off the floor that we valued and went back to bed.

This is update #1 from Rick this morning. (due to the fact I had to be on the road at 5:30am) "Just an update on stuff. All of the rugs are out hanging on stair rails right now. I went through the whole apartment twice with the shop-vac and filled it 22 times (about 88 gallons...). It is still pretty wet but not splashing when you take a step. All of the windows are open (only a little bit in Z's room) and fans are on. The maintenance guy stopped by to see everything and he is still waiting for a call back from the carpet vacuum extractor guy. He thinks that they will have to pull up some of the edges of the carpet and setup some fans blowing under the carpet for the next day or so to help it dry out. We will be able to shut the fans off when we are at home but will need to leave them on when we leave. I have to unhook the TV and move it so they can work on that corner."

The hallway with the fan and the suction machine.

Update #2 "Right now all wet spots of carpet have been cleared of everything, so the bed is covered with stuff, the couch has some stuff on it, the kitchen and bathroom are all full of stuff, and the TV is in the corner where Z’s high chair normally is. I just stopped back by home to see what was happening and the carpet guy was already there and gone. They have a couple of big fans blowing air under the living room and hallway carpet, and a small suction pump thing sucking water out of the carpet and draining into the bathroom sink. The carpet will still be a bit damp as we walk around tonight. We’ll have to figure out how to come up with a dry surface for Z to lay on. Edmund is a little freaked out. However, the apartment has been thoroughly vacuumed :)."

The carpet waving from the fan blowing underneath of it.

So that is an update on our Apartment...fun stuff! Not really. But I am sure we will look back on this and laugh just a little.