River...Water...Flood

We never thought we would have to say this twice in a lifetime: We lost our house in a flood.

It is an awful experience the first time around. It is beyond comprehension a second time.

On Tax Day - April 15 - of 2007, just eight months after we moved into our first home and eight months after I laid my mother to rest, a Nor'easter slammed through our house. As unwelcome as illness, the flood waters left four feet of water sloshing through everything we owned and all manner of destruction in its wake.

In the immediate days following the colliding of rivers inside our house, we stayed like so many others, holed up in a hotel room with our pets, completely numb. When we realized we had clothes for only a couple of days, we had to shop. Instead we cried in corners of stores and went unnoticed. And so we walked out, usually without a bag in sight.

Days and nights mingled, but we were lost amid emotions too dark to understand. We forgot to eat. We slept the sleep of the troubled and woke in startled realization. We inched as close as authorities allowed and watched an obscene amount our water separate us from our home, our belongings, and our life. We imagined the worst case and the best case and wished and prayed for the latter.

Everyone said: "Those are just things. At least you got out safely." That is true, but they were our things and formed a part of our whole. Shouldn't we be allowed to mourn the loss without seeming superficial?

Our lives for days, weeks and months became a chaotic battle with insurance adjusters, FEMA representatives and numerous other vultures who tried to swindle us with promises of low-interest loans to rebuild and contracts to fill our every need. Everyone who could sink in their teeth where they saw desperation paid us a visit. We went around for days like zombies, appealing to those who were meant to assist the flood victims. Like a joke we weren't in on, they made us work for what little they provided.

They made excuses: "Well, technically your overturned oil tank is outside the house, so therefore not covered."

We protested: "But we can't live in a house without heat!"

They contested: "Not covered! Sorry!"

And so we had to scrape together to fix this and that and all of this and all of that, which we were told over and over again, was not covered. Why then, do we even bother to have insurance? I ran around with my carefully constructed folder of documents, photos (before and after) and receipts, painstakingly detailing our existence in dollar amounts. What do you say to an insurance adjuster who tells you that your new $900 entertainment cabinet is really just worth a little over $150 in his book? Grin and bear it? Fight him? You do neither and both and still you come up short. That's the way it is in the end.

The strength of our young marriage was tested then - blown up like a balloon past its capacity. Our marriage is older and it will be tested again. Little by little, we will have to figure things out, like we did in 2007. Little by little, we will work to restore our life.

Back then, the mind-numbing labyrinth we were forced to navigate was as foreign to us NYC kids as any ceaseless maze made to torment the mind. Nearly everything we had was new, bought especially for our first home, picked with extreme care and love. When we returned to the house to assess the damage days later, we barely recognized the moldy, dirty, smelly space we once called home. Furniture moved about like ghosts in our absence - overturning, swaying and shifting from their places. We found living room pieces in the bathroom and home office pieces in the kitchen and books everywhere. Our bathtub tried to swallow all of the floating, lost items like a starving animal.

Black mold lined the bloated corners, warped walls and drenched furniture meeting us like crooked old fingers ready to scratch at every turn. People said: "Oh, my God! Marilyn! You can't be in that house! You'll get sick!" Please! I am already sick...to my stomach from all of it. What else was I supposed to do? It was our house? I couldn't stay away, while Joe tried to pick up the shattered mess and salvage what he could. I had to be there. I needed to help him. So I did the only thing I could think of: I recovered my Sweet 16 tiara from its strange perch atop destroyed CDs. I cleaned it until the rhinestones shined again. I placed it on my head. I pulled my hair up in a bun. I grabbed a surgical mask and placed it over my nose and mouth. I took the industrial strength gloves and placed them on my hands. In my tall, rubber, unattractive waders and rolled up sleeves, I was a sight! Red Cross volunteers stopped by to see if we were okay. When they saw me, they said I was the best thing they had seen all day. They were good and I made them smile. By the way, "waders" is a word no Queens kid should ever have to learn.

Tiara in place, I then started to work. I never worked so hard in all my life. I worked alongside Joe, until my skin shook with exhaustion. I worked with him until I felt the insulting rays of sunshine ushering in beautiful spring days that had nothing to do with what we were facing. We worked until the smells of rotting woods, cushions and clothes was overwhelming. Yet weekend after weekend we went back, willing ourselves to not give up. Trying to see that damned light at the end of this dark tunnel. Making jokes to keep ourselves from weeping.

One day I spent hours on the warped, wet deck trying to save the love letters and cards Joe had given me over our courtship. I flattened and blotted and hung the stained paper like clean laundry on the line. I hoped the bleeding ink would stop seeping away all the words and thoughts. I held them like fragile papyrus, crying the whole time.

Two-hundred-thirty-three of my most beloved books - collected over a lifetime - were destroyed. My books were found in the bathtub, the kitchen, under overturned furniture and mixed with shoes and clothing and things that were never meant to reside together. It was all we could do to hold on to our sanity. At almost every turn, our hearts broke, when we realized the extent of our losses.

Numbly we worked to trash, discover, unearth, cry over, and become enraged about so many things we had collected and now lost. Our wedding album. Our DVDs. Our books. Childhood photo albums my mother so carefully put together. My Sweet 16 album carved out of cherry wood. My 1st Communion Bible. Autographed pictures, books and mementos that were irreplaceable. Gone. And that was just for starters.

It took us nine full months to return to the house. Almost the same time we had been in the house. Nine months of contractors walking through our gutted home. Nine months of slick talking swindlers trying to sell us a bridge we didn't need. Nine months of choosing paint and tile and granite and cabinetry. Nine months of almost getting excited about the house. Nine months of waiting for deliveries. Nine months of waiting for progress, only to be disappointed week after week. Nine months of waiting and dealing and choosing and discussing and decision-making to have a home we could be proud of. And we were proud.

But still, in the deepest pockets of our minds we wanted to sell and move away. We were terrified of reliving a nightmare such as this one. What were the chances, right? We hoped for restitution, but it wasn't meant to happen that way.

How to do that without losing it all?

How to do that and expect to survive the financial hit that rams into you like an 18-wheeler?

How do you get up from the ground, when the bully keeps kicking you in the face?

How come we had to be victimized this way?

Hadn't we been through enough?

Just for the record, we never stopped looking for a safer home, but we never got there.

Unfortunately, the start of 2010 had something in store for us that we hoped would never come, but lived in fear of all the same. On the night of March 13, the waters started to creep up quietly around us. The heavy winter snow melted, as the rain pounded and the temperature rose. It was a perfect storm.

But what do you do when your home is the home you can afford and the one that best fits your life right now? What do you do when you think you can trust a realtor, a seller and your own lawyer to be honest about flood potential and they lie to your face? What do you do when you invest all that you have in acquiring that itty bitty piece of your signature American Dream and then the façade crumbles? What else can you do after a flood, but invest more time, energy, love and detail to rebuilding, only to have another river crash through your doors?

Last Friday, I got a tiny bit of bad news. I thought that was the worst part of my day.

Then, the water began its taunting dance along our surrounding streets, flowing like a determined enemy watching its prey. "It won't reach the street," we said. When our street was covered in murky water, "It won't reach the house," we hoped. When the backyard was an unrecognizable river, we thought, "This can't be happening again."

The news reports called it a Nor'easter, just like the one in 2007. No! Not that horrible word again! Not another Nor'easter!

We slept that night, naïvely expecting to have a life the next day. In the early morning hours our home phone rang persistently. Maybe I ignored it the first few times. When I stumbled over to grab it, a recorded voice said there was a flood emergency and if we wanted to evacuate, now was the time. Still fuzzy-brained from sleep, I peeked out the window. My heart stopped mid-beat. Had our home floated away during the night? I ran from window to window. All the views were the same. Water surrounded us.

I went into full panic mode, waking Joe with a scream and jagged half sentences. "We have to go! The water is coming! Get the cat! I'll take the dog. Lift the stuff." We did all we could and then emergency personnel showed up. "You folks needing to evacuate?" We knew then that this would be a repeat performance. "We need some time to get ready," I pleaded. "We'll be back for you then," they promised.

Suddenly a small rescue boat was inching to our front door and we were climbing into it with our animals and what few things we could bring. We moved as if by memory alone. Following the same steps we did in 2007. We floated silently and then climbed back inside the same gargantuan truck that led us to safety just over three years ago.

By Sunday afternoon, our storage shed had overturned and everything in it was gone - so said our neighbors who chose to stay behind, only to regret it later. They are still there, trapped on their second floor. We call them to make sure they are okay and each time we speak, the news gets worse. "The water has reached your top step...The water has reached your living room window...The water is inside."

By then, we knew had no home again. This time we had been given a brief moment of realization, so we could race like greyhounds through our house lifting whatever we could lift to keep it out of harm's way. Unfortunately, the news was brutal and heart-wrenching every time we called. And as we watched the rivers rise on television, with no signs of cresting hour after hour, we understood. All that we lifted was not high enough to avoid this godforsaken river from latching on to our home and destroying it once again.

So here we are again...back to square one. Starting from scratch. We have not been back to the house. Days later, the water is still too high. We hesitate to imagine what we will find this time around. But it has to be different this time. We can't do this again. We won't do this again. That is not our home anymore. It is just a shell that holds all of our newly destroyed belongings. We must go back and sift through everything and save what we can all over again. But this time, we cannot rebuild. It isn't in us anymore.

We're out of that suffocating hotel room. We were tired of hearing other multiple-flood victims discussing how they will rebuild. We can't imagine how they can keep doing it over and over again. Perhaps we aren't strong enough, or maybe we are just wiser now.

We're with family today. We had to leave our cat with friends in New Jersey. We will leave our dog with my brother this weekend. Like us, they too have been uprooted. Their lives have been interrupted. But we can't explain to them why this is happening, we can only watch their sad eyes, as we walk away again.

We are far from safe and secure because what lies ahead of us this time could prove to be even more tumultuous, draining, stressful and emotional than before. Where will we live now? The question looms over us like the darkest cloud during the worst of storms. How can we afford to live anywhere when we have lost everything?

What we are facing now is an escape from this hell hole with the least amount of bleeding and destruction to our lives. We have endured enough!

In a matter of hours we can't recall, we were back in that same hotel from 2007, only it was 2010. A Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday became one in the same blurred into each other because we didn't pay attention to the rising and setting of the sun. We were locked, like so many other victims, in a dark room with our pets and what few things we were able to grab before the evacuation. It's the worst kind of Déjá vue. All we wanted was for it not to be happening. But it was (and is) happening.

And this is only the beginning...

April showed up like the guest who wasn't told of an unhappy divorce - smiling and sunny. However, our life was still suspended because before the waters receded, still another powerful storm rattled through the area. All of these days - 25 if you want specifics - we couldn't really get into the house by normal means. Then yesterday, when we finally did. We almost regretted it. The mold...God help me! It gets into everything and is everywhere. It comes in all shades, too....red, black, gray green, fuzzy, peachy, gross and deadly. The stench makes my eyes tear up and my skin crawl.

In the clumps of lost belongings, there is one small Coach bag I think I might save. But it is covered like a leper in mold spores. When I pick up and see that, I drop it like it has burned my hand. I moan and grunt and say no, no, no. Joe just watches me quietly because he knows he can't fix this for me. He watches because he knows there will be many more moments of heart break like this one.

The flood adjuster comes to assess. I want him to be as insulted and as hurt and as disgusted by all of this as we are. He is kind and fair, but maybe he is jaded - having been on an assessment driving tour from the state of Washington, through Kentucky and elsewhere. He has been wherever the water was too much for the earth to drink.

He leaves, but we remain because this is our place and our stuff. We still hope for small miracles in the madness. I can't begin to express the extent of of grotesqueness left behind after a flood. I've not yet acquired the vocabulary that is as destructive as the damage we see and as potent as the stench we smell.

And as in 2007...this is only the beginning.