Protecting my rehabs

I wanted to post about what I did last night.  It goes along with what is happening in my hometown right now.  This post is of more of a serious nature but what is happening has made me ask the questions  ”Am I prepared for a disaster in my home?”  My last post I mentioned that we were stuck inside because of rain.  That was an understatement.  It literally rained for four days here….hard.  I live in an area surrounded by lakes and my neighborhood and work  is right along one of those lakes.   My house is not lakeside.  In fact, I am a five-minute walk down a hill to the lake.  My neighborhood has a diverse group of homes.  You have a large grouping of small homes away from the lake and then you are a short run down to huge homes whose backyard is on the lake.  The lakes here are premiere for fishing.  People travel to fish, so many people like to have lakeside homes.  One large lake feeds into the lake that runs past my neighborhood and past my work.  If the large lake were to be compromised it would flood two entire towns so they have to make sure that lake is not over flooded.   The dam is over 50 years old and for the second time in its history they had to open up the 10 flood gates to release water from the large lake.  Here is a recent picture of the dam.  This is from KY3 news.  It really is quite a site.

Here is the havoc that the water is causing.  This is a house in my neighborhood.

Look at the house to the left in the picture.  That gray circular thing is a hot tub being lifted off their porch!

Do you see the mattress floating in front of this house?

Do you see the small orange sliver to the left of the picture?  All of my neighbors were standing there and the guy across the street explained that it is the homeowners old truck.

This picture is of a street in my neighborhood.  I run down this street.  I would be swimming.

Here is a pic of someone hauling their possessions away right as the water is getting into their driveway.  Look at their back gate…its opens to a lake.

Here is another part of the street:

I don’t mean to be Debbie downer but I just couldn’t post my next “rehab” when there were so many people who are homeless so close to where I live.  The crazy thing is that I stood with people last night who were watching the water destroy their home. They did have time to get out what was important to them and the rest, in their own words, was just “stuff”.  Thankfully, all of them have insurance.  (You have to have flood insurance to live there.)  Their perepsective blew me away.  As piper, my dog, and I walked home I got to thinking….am I ready?  Could I have that perspective?  So, I went home…ignored the rehab project I wanted to work on (sorry erika…I will work on your duvet cover tonight )  and decided to get myself prepared.

FIRST OF ALL…my house is about 60-80 ft above lake level (depending on which neighbor you ask) .   I realized that I need to call someone to find out exactly how high we are so we would not have to wonder.   I am not flooded, the houses around me are not flooded, and I will not flood unless the dam breaks…which is not going to happen unless something catastrophic occured. In that case…my entire town will be flooded.   There is no need to worry about me right now.  (mom…do you hear me?)  But whose to say that tomorrow my house won’t be hit by a tornado or destroyed  by a fire.  Could I get out quickly? If I am given a little time via a warning…would I be able to get stuff I need quickly?

There are policemen patrolling my neighborhood blocking off roads so people can’t drive down them right now.  One of them told me that the only reason the area where my house is located could be evacuated would be because they might have to turn all of our electricity off.  They would let us know a few hours before by blowing sirens, loudspeakers, and going door to door.  The people in the homes I showed you….they officially had about 24 hours notice.

 So this is what I went home and did immediately knowing that I might be evacuated.  

• I packed a bag of clothing and toiletries for all in my family and set it by the kitchen table.
• We have a file box of all important documents.  I loaded it in the car.
• I loaded my dogs food, leash, and kennel in the car.
• I set out the hubs and my purse/wallet, our work bags, and the camera bag with camera and accessories and set it on the kitchen table and made sure the chargers to our phone were in my purse.
• Right next to my purse I set my phone and car keys.
• We keep manuals for everything we buy and I put that box on the table.
• I gathered pictures and sentimental items that money cannot replace all on the kitchen table.

• Take pics of everything.  If you can’t prove you have it then insurance won’t pay for it.  I wasn’t going to take pics of my kitchen necessities but we have lots of kitchen supplies that we have acquired over time.  We aquired it all through gifts and as we have needed things. If I were to have to buy it all at once it would add up to a ton of money.
• If you can get the brand and model number then take the picture with that included.
• Be thorough.

After I did this I uploaded them to my computer.  Then I stored them on an “off site” storage.  That way…if my computer doesn’t make it I can get them anywhere.  We used Dropbox to do this.  If I purchase anything new I am going to take a pic and add it to our Dropbox file. (p.s. if you open a drop box account and you learned about it from us mention us (Lee and Jennifer Farley) and we will get more storage for referring you!  Then tell your friends and have them refer you so you can get more storage for free!)

Finally, I consolidated our important files.  I took the file box out of the car and made sure every important document was in that box.  Even if it was just a piece of paper that had my account information for something.  The hubs has kept a file for our house and our flip house were we keep records of all of our rehabs and renovations.  For example, we put a new HVAC system in our house and we have the manual and receipt.  This will be good when we sell that house but in a catastrophe it will help with our homes value.  I placed this file in our important box.  (After I organized it, I put it in the car again

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer