I guess there are three things I remember about going to Michigan. The last is one year, we went at a time other than Thansgiving. I think it was in July, but not sure. We were in Battle Creek and one day I got a call from Paul Day back in Rochester. “You’d better come home, right now,” he said. “We’ve had a little rain.” We cut our trip short and all piled in the car and headed back for Eyota. Yes, it had rained. We arrived home to find that we had had four feet of water in our basement. I was told that at one time, the water was shooting up out of the toilet bowl in the basement like a hugh hose. I think the Curret’s lived next door to us at that time and Allen Currit had had the presense of mind to come over to our house and look through the basement window. (It may have been Andy Anderson from across the street that raised the alarm, I’m not sure) When he saw the water, he called the church.
The guys came over with a sump pump and somehow broke into the house and started pumping the water out of the basement. By the time we got home, most of it was gone. There was just a couple inches left. Needless to say, we had a mess. We literally lost everything that was below four feet, which included just about everything in the basement. All of our food storage was gone. The kids had a neat little area down there with a bunch of toys that they played with. All ruined. The washer and dryer were down stairs. I’m pretty sure they had to be replaced. Some things could be dried out and used, but not much. The TV was a total loss. The couch and chairs. I noticed after a few days that the paneling on the walls was buckling for the bottom four feet or so. So, I got some help and we ripped out all the paneling in the basment.
In the space of just a few days, we went from a furnished, completed basement which we used a lot to an unfinished basement with no furniture. It took us a long time to get the basement back to where we could use it again. I think the church bought us a new washer. The governor of Minnesota had declared Rochester and some of the out-lying towns as disaster areas. So, we were supposed to get some assistance. I don’t remember if we actually got any money or not, but I do remember going into Rochester and standing in line to get assistance and being given a pail and a mop and a couple other little items. I thought that was pretty bad when what we needed was real help.
It was interesting to see the effects of the flood in Rochester. The whole SE section of town had flooded. Since the church was in the SE section, we were naturally concerned. It turned out that that flood waters came to within just a couple feet of the door of the church and then stopped. The building itself was fine and no water got in at all. Heavenly Father was looking out for us. I think Mayo High School just across the street from the church did have water in the building that had to be cleaned out. Since it was July, they could get that done before school started in the fall.
But, we got through it. I never did put the paneling back up. A couple years later, we had another smaller flood, so maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t. When we sold the house, it was with an unfurnished basement. Just another of my failings.
Dad