5 Feet of Water

The news covered this area over and over again, showing the all-too-familiar brown water taking over everything in its path. The volunteer who led our team told us we'd be driving to a subdivision that will look normal at the beginning, but we'd be headed to the lowest parts of that neighborhood that received the most damage.

This was the giant crane trash picker upper that was in the neighborhood getting rid of all the flooded piles of debris. A part of my team's work was to move existing piles of said debris closer to the road so it could be picked up by the crane. Contents of debris piles: toys, shoes, clothes, food, soaked drywall and insulation, carpet, rugs, the entire contents of the first floor of every house in this neighborhood. All of the houses on this road looked like this.

This is where I spent the first part of my day. We removed all the nails and staples from the subfloor - the flooring had been pulled out already. If you look at the wall, you can see that they had 5 feet of flooding in their home. The back door had white blinds that up top looked pristine, but 5 feet up from the bottom was brown, stained from the floodwater.

As we got ready to leave, one homeowner came to us and said, "We can't thank you enough for all of your help. And if anything like this ever happens to you ... (she paused) ... don't call me." Good to know these people have been through so much but still have their sense of humor.