Flood-Rucker

This week, Rexburg experienced what I would have thought was just a small storm, but in fact it was actually the makings of a flood! I was out around town looking for a slip for a new skirt I had bought and when I finally got out my phone, I was greeted with 6 missed calls!

Rexburg was flooding and basement apartments everywhere were taking the brunt of it. Thankfully no one at my apartment complex was really affected, but a Sister in my ward had her entire apartment filled in a matter of minutes. She lost just about everything in her home.

I am her visiting teacher and her husband is in the guard with Mitch, meaning he is also gone for the month. She couldn't get a hold of her husband and had no man-power to help her, so I got a group of people rounded up hoping that we could go and just bucket out water. In the short 5 minutes it took for me to get a group together and drive over to her apartment, the entire thing was submerged. A window shattered inward from pressure and her apartment filled up in no time. 

This is the stairwell leading into her apartment when we got there. Thankfully she was able to get her laptops and xbox out of the apartment, but her TV, furniture, clothing, food, disks, appliances, shoes, books, everything was ruined and submerged for over 15 hours. 

Going into her apartment after it was mostly pumped out was horrifying. It was like a third world country when you went down into it. Her furniture had 15 hours to float around and we found her refridgerator precariously balanced on the kitchen counter and the kitchen table with all of the food spilled out. Her bed and dressers had all been smashed into the bedroom door and we had to physically rip the door in half in order to get into that room. The only thing that stayed dry was a set of sheets in their original packaging. Everything else was completely water-logged.

There was one good thing about this flood and it was the fact that I got to see the amazing service people in Rexburg can provide. When there are bad drivers, jay-walkers, and idiots on campus, it was amazing to see the self-less service people were willing to provide.

Because I had sort of spear-headed everything, I got an in-depth look at this service. I collected laundry baskets to help us move everything from the apartment and sort them. People were giving me laundry baskets, food, money, and whatever else they could donate as I came by. A girl who I am not entirely close with and who isn't even in the ward to know Emily donated 3 laundry baskets, a box of food, and $20. It was that donation that left me feeling very emotional. I remember thinking, "Here you are, preparing to move in 3 days, soothing a crying baby, and selflessly giving what others wouldn't dare get involved in." It gave me a new respect for her that I had not taken the time to develop earlier.

I put together a group of people to help try and save as much clothing as possible. We pulled everything we could find out of the apartment including purses, shoes, belts, and general clothing and used the back of my truck as a sorting area.

I drove around town with this in the bed of my truck to deliver baskets to those in our ward who had volunteered to wash some laundry for me. I honestly looked like someone living during the Great Depression that had put every single thing I owned in my truck. We thankfully got about 10 people in our ward to clean a basket or two of laundry. It wasn't much in retrospect, but to Emily, it saved her about 3 days worth of laundry and hundreds of pieces of clothing that would have otherwise molded.

In all, this flood was incredible. What was a tiny storm turned into a life-changing event. There were so many people that were affected and I am so grateful to still have my apartment and my things perfectly chaotic but dry. It is a double sided coin, really. I am grateful to have experienced the flood and to have seen my "hardly unified ward" become unified in a common cause, but I am also so gracious that nothing of mine was destroyed. Emily has been a complete champion this entire week. She has kept her head held high and has had the most positive outlook, she should be a spokesperson!

Sayonara, Rexburg Flood of 2014

- Alex