Holy Hurricane

I've been so consumed with Hurricane Irene and its aftermath, I haven't had time for any blogging. Here's what's been going on my neck of the woods in New Jersey:

We prepped all day Saturday for the hurricane by putting stuff away and stocking up on food and batteries. We planned on sleeping in the basement due to the tornado watch in effect in our area until 5am. We have lots of old trees surrounding our house and didn't want to risk one falling on the house on or near one of the rooms where we sleep. So we put the boys' bunk bed mattresses next to each other and hunkered down for the night.

The power went out at about 11pm. We couldn't see much from the basement, but we heard wind and rain. It was a restless, worrisome sleep but when I finally got on my feet at 7:30am, this is what awaited me:

The sump pump cut off with the power and our mostly-finished basement flooded. At first I thought it was just a squishy carpet, but there were actually inches of water floating around. Since the power was still out, hubs and I found some buckets and tried to get as much water out as possible. Not fun!

That's my grandmother's 100+ year old china cabinet by the way. I don't even want to think about it. Once the power came back on at 11am, the sump pump came on and whooshed away a lot of the water. Then we took to the shop vac. We're still trying to shop vac the carpet that just won't get dry. It's still squishy with water. We have fans blowing to try to dry it out, but it doesn't appear to be working, at least not yet. I think the ground is so wet outside that it keeps seeping into the house.

We have lots of fun stuff in the basement: pool table, bar, china cabinets, hubs' guitars and amps, drum set, tv stand with tv. Nothing we "need" but things we enjoy.

I'm now waiting for the insurance company to get back to me to determine if I'm covered for any of the flood damage, which I'm probably not because I don't have flood insurance. I'm thankful that it's just the basement that got damaged as opposed to our living area.

That being said, I'm still mentally stressed and concerned about what to do next. Pulling up that carpet is no small feat, and I'm afraid that's what we're going to have to do.

Hope those of you that were in the hurricane's path fared as well, if not better, than I.