Foreword
My name is Charys Russell, and I am 14 years old. My grandmother gave me a
journal to write down my flood story, and the following are some excerpts that I have
selected to share with you.
Part One: The Evacuation
This is a disaster.
They're calling this the flood of the century.
I'll start at the beginning.
June 20th, 2013. Thursday.
I was supposed to be at a friend's bridal shower at the church at 7pm. We (my
mom and I) were going to leave at 6:30pm.
Now, it's been raining pretty well nonstop for the past week or so, and the rivers
usually flood at this time of year anyway.
At 6:00ish, Mum and Dad and I were eating our stir-fry dinner. We were kind of
aware that some communities might have to evacuate since the river was pretty high
(mind, it had been raining for the past week). I was already done eating, since I eat a lot
faster than Mum and Dad, so Mum told me to go start packing an emergency overnight
bag in case we needed to evacuate, or if they evacuated while I was at the shower, or
anything like that. While we were eating, a bunch of people who work at the Telus
building kitty-corner to our house were piling up sandbags and gravel and things like
that - but we didn't see any city workers or emergency crew, so I figured that they were
mainly taking precautions, but Mum realized that the Telus employees knew they were
going to be flooded and that meant we were going to get water too, so she sent me
packing.
About 5 - 10 minutes later, policemen started pulling up on the street (we live on
Bow Crescent) and telling us with their bullhorns to pack enough for 72 hours - 3 days and to evacuate, get away from the river. I packed enough for 5 days. My parents
packed enough for 2.
Needless to say, I ended up not going to the bridal shower.
After we packed, Dad hurriedly brought up electronics and valuables from our
basement. We had just finished our basement a couple months ago, and we were using
it quite a bit considering it's literally half of our house.
Dad told me to bring up anything that I consider valuable, or wouldn't want to
lose. I brought up my guitar. I considered bringing up my beanbag chair since it was a
special gift from my aunts, but I didn't. I regret that now. I also regret not bringing up any
of my books. I remember thinking "I don't keep anything precious to me downstairs,"
(which I later realized wasn't exactly true) and wandering around the house, wondering
what I should do. Dad brought up his guitar, his speaker, our computer that has all of
the taxes on it, our generator, and all of Mum's products ready for sale (she selfemploys/owns a business called Nature Notes - skincare products made with essential
oils - and her workshop was in the basement).
At one point I went into my room and placed everything of value from in there
(which was surprisingly a lot) on top of my loft bed. I was quite confident that the
floodwater wouldn't reach a bed 6 feet above the ground level.
After all that, we piled our evac bags into Dad's truck and Mum's car, and drove
both vehicles to Nana and Popa's, since they live 6 blocks away from us. They were
under evacuation too, and we decided to stick together. We fled to Auntie Betty's house
(she's not actually my aunt, I just call her that), since she's a good friend of ours and
lives on high ground.
Driving out of Bowness was slow, since everyone else was leaving too. Right
before we crossed Shouldice bridge, we saw the Crescent was already covered in
water, although I wasn't sure if that was because the river was right there or if it was
from storm drain backup. When we crossed the bridge, we could see that the river was
incredibly high and running way faster than usual. Traffic was still backed up after the
bridge. Someone's truck lost its front right wheel and was just sitting in the middle of the
intersection by Safeway.
The entire time we were driving to Betty's, I had been texting my friends,
updating them and asking if they were flooded too. It turns out that I'm the ONLY one I
know who lives near a river; everyone else lives on a hill.
One of my friends had replied, saying that my predicament wasn't nearly as bad
as the time she was in Beijing and there was a terrible flood, with entire buildings swept
away. Apparently her tour bus was on the news. I didn't know why she was telling me
this, since I knew I was going to lose at least part of my house and was panicking.
Maybe she was trying to divert my attention from the crisis to something else (which I
admit I do to others when I'm trying to comfort them), or just didn't know what to say, but
I found it kind of insensitive.
The other person who texted me back really quickly was Emma, one of my best
friends from elementary school. She had been over earlier that day, playing Minecraft
with me and hanging out and we had promised to get in touch soon. I guess it really
was soon.
After we passed the Safeway, traffic was fine and we made it to Betty's within an
hour. It was raining the entire time.
When we got there, we unloaded our bags and sat around, watching the news.
Popa, Betty, and Dad were socializing a bit, but the rest of us just sat there, dazed. At
one point an emergency alert came on the air, telling people in Bowness, Montgomery,
Discovery Ridge, and a few other places to evacuate and avoid low-lying areas. We
were already evacuated, so this really only made us worry more. Betty, Popa, and Dad
kept updating people throughout the night, and the prayer chain was moving pretty
quickly by the end of the evening.
Later we had some frozen pizza, and went to bed - Nana and Popa in Betty's
room, Betty in her guest room, and Mum and Dad and I on the floor on some
mattresses. Nana spent the entire night sick.
June 21st, 2013. Friday.
This morning, we found out that our friend Asa had been working through the
night with the city.
Dad left really early, since he had to go check on his office and make sure
everything was okay. He ended up shifting some products around in the warehouse to
make sure they wouldn't get wet, and he took pictures of where the water was - halfway
up the warehouse door by the time he got there.
At a more reasonable hour in the morning, Betty fed us toast and we packed up
and shipped out. We (Nana, Popa, Mum and I) were going to try and get back into
Bowness, despite the fact that the evacuations were still active and the news was telling
us to stay away for rivers and low-lying areas. Our friend Jane hadn't slept all night; she
texted Nana earlier that morning and explained that she had driven past their house,
and it was high and dry. She couldn't get to our house for all the police barricades.
Popa decided that it would be safe for us to go to their place, so we began the
tedious journey back to Bowness. The only way in was by Bowfort road, up by Canada
Olympic Park. Coming down that road, you could visibly see that you were going into a
valley, and the warning of "avoid low-lying areas" was still ringing in my mind. I can't
recall if it was raining; the rain stopped either on Friday or Saturday.
We ended up having lunch at Denny's. When we got back to Nana and Popa's,
we just sat around and watched the news. There was another emergency alert for
something or other; probably a state of emergency issued for the city.
Throughout the day, we tried to walk back to our house to see how it stood, but
couldn't get through. Dad also walked to the park a block away from Nana and Popa's
to check on the river, but Mum wouldn't let me go since the river was incredibly high.
The Downtown Core was shut down completely, since a lot of workers had their
houses flooded, and the streets of Downtown were flooded too, and no one could get in
or out.
June 22nd, 2013. Saturday.
We still don't really know what to, so we ended up going to Walmart and picking
up some clothes, since Mum and Dad were on their last pair of socks and whatnot.
Doing this, we realized that we didn't know when we'd be back in our home, which was
kind of disconcerting. We also got some basic supplies (like a garbage can for Mum and
Dad's guest room at Nana and Popa's, and some big bins for carrying everything) too.
Over the previous few days there had been a run on bottled water, so there was hardly
any in the stores. We also tried to get some gumboots for Mum, Dad, and Popa (Nana
and I already had a pair), but there was a run on those, too. We couldn't find any,
anywhere!
Close to where Nana and Popa's house is, the Crescent turns to run South and it
kind of dips down in a little hill. We've started calling the dippy area "the Pool" because
it's about the same depth as a swimming pool, and it's filled up right to the top. We've
been going down there several times to check on how high the water is.
Around 5pm, Mum and Dad and I walked down to our place to try and get in. The
street was still full of water, but the police barricades were gone.
It took us a while to get in. The Telus building people had built up their berm even
more; it was a giant pile of gravel, about 5 or 6 feet high, and it was piled up all around
the block. Conveniently, it allowed one to walk all the way to the intersection without
getting their feet wet. I figured that the berm didn't quite reach our house, since it
wrapped around the corner. Besides, it was on the wrong side of the street, and no one
was going to cross the street (gumboots or no gumboots). I walked along people's wet
lawns on our side of the street, and Mum and Dad joined me when they saw that I could
make it to our house. One of our neighbours got in to his house before we made it to
ours, so we chatted for a bit, and he offered to lend us his sump pump. When we got to
our back door, Dad went in first to make sure everything was okay. The first thing he
checked on was the basement...it was full of water! The water came about halfway up
the walls (later we found out it was 5 feet and 1 inch high), and you could see all of our
furniture floating around. All of the things we had in storage, like scrapbooks and
pictures and food and luggage, were ruined. That moment was when we realized that
everything that had been in our basement would have to be thrown out. We had just
finished renovating that May, too!
Thankfully the water was only in our basement; our main floor was okay, and our
house doesn't have a second floor.
Then Dad turned off the electricity (it was still on, for some reason; the city hadn't
cut it off yet).
This was when I started to regret not bringing my books up.
We didn't take anything out of the house that day. Dad hooked up the sump
pump that one of our neighbours lent us and stayed there most of the evening. Mum
and I went home after a while.
June 23rd, 2013. Sunday.
I think Mum and I both cried ourselves to sleep last night.
Mum and I went to church that morning. Dad stayed home and continued
pumping out our basement (his uncle joined him for a bit too, to help). Preston (the
senior pastor) had tailored his sermon to the flood, and was preaching about Job. About
halfway through the church service, Mum started crying again, and one of the ladies slid
over and gave her a big hug. I felt like crying too.
After the service was done, Mum and I drove over to Nana and Popa's church.
They were having a potluck lunch that Sunday, so Mum and I decided to stop in, pick up
a lunch for Dad, and give everyone an update. When we got there, all of the ladies
started piling food into our arms, giving us tons of food and sandwiches and desserts
and the like for the workers (a bunch of people from our Homegroup volunteered to
come help us clean out our basement). We weren't there for very long - we barely had
time to eat our own food - before we headed for home. We didn't get home until around
1pm.
In a few weeks, I'm scheduled to go on a mission's trip to Mexico with my church
and Samaritan's Purse. We're going to be working at an orphanage and handing out
eyeglasses. I hope the flood doesn't throw a wrench into this trip...
When we got home, only Dad was there. He had gotten the basement down to a
couple inches, and we could see everything turned over and strewed about helterskelter. Our freezer was tipped over and leaning against the opposite wall, preventing
us from getting to half of our basement. The worst part was that we couldn't touch
anything, since we didn't know if it was contaminated with sewage water or bacteria or
anything like that.
After a bit, Nana and Popa showed up, and we snacked on some of the donated
food. After a bit, we emptied our fridge into about 4 coolers and toted them around the
flooded street to Popa's van (parked a few blocks away) to take to Nana and Popa's we couldn't leave it at our place because our fridge was turned off and the food would
all rot.
Later I was sitting on Nana's couch playing on her tablet, and she went out to
check on "The Pool". When she got back, she handed me a rock with the word
"strength" engraved on it. Nana told me that she got it from the Victim's Assistance
people who were down by "The Pool", and that they were handing out stuffies too, but
she didn't think that I'd want a stuffie. I told her in a quiet voice that I kind of did want a
stuffie, so we went back and chatted with the ladies from the VA. The lady told me that
they had traditional bears or more contemporary stuffed animals (like elephants and
tigers). I didn't really want a teddy bear - they were very nice bears, but they looked too
sad to me, and I wanted something happy - so I picked out a very colourful monkey. It
has sock-monkey ears, a pink head, yellow tail, orange body, green arms, and pink
legs. Then we went back to Nana's.
Nana, Popa and I are trying to decide on a name for it. We're not sure if it's a
male or female monkey, so we're trying to come up with a gender-neutral name. Popa
just came up with Leveeta - which Nana thinks is perfect, but I don't get it so they have
to explain it to me.
Later
I get why it's the perfect name,
See, a levee is a bank or dike. When the flood happened, the river burst its
banks - or levees. "Ta" is just a suffix added to turn it into a name.
The VA people also gave me a pamphlet about traumatic stress, too. After I read
that, I understood that Mum was (and still kind of is) in shock.
Monday, June 24th.
What a day.
When we went to check on "The Pool", all of the water was gone, and people
had started going back into their homes. By now most of Bowness was checking the
damage to their homes, and the community centre was allowing people to check in
(which we did). The community centre had a line of tables set up, with maps and
pamphlets spread out, and each table was manned by military personnel who checked
our names off on a list when we checked in.
My friend Emma came over to Nana and Popa's to help me move my belongings
from where I was sleeping to an actual bedroom in the basement. Her mom is helping at
our place.
The Downtown Core is still shut down. Apparently a ton of people who normally
work downtown went to McMahon Stadium, and busses were transporting people from
the stadium to flooded communities (like Bowness). As a result, Bow Crescent was
crawling with volunteers today, who were helping everyone clean out their basements
and rip out drywall and carpet, among other things. Throughout the day, we had at least
70 people cycle through our house, carrying up flooded items from storage, and later rip
out our carpet and drywall.
For supper, Gisela brought a giant pot of chili to Nana's, and all of the volunteers
we actually knew (Emma and her mom, and some people from our church) ate supper
with us.
Later, I ended up going back to our place, and I went into the basement just to
see what it looked like with all of the drywall and carpet gone. It looked so bare and
empty...that's when I lost it. It looked just like it did a year or two ago, before we finished
renovating. It really hit me how much we lost, and that we really were never getting it
back. I started crying and couldn't stop, and Lydia came over to me and hugged me for
the longest time. It felt nice, but it didn't make me any less sad.
June 25, 2013.
Today is Mum and Dad's anniversary. I completely forgot until this morning. I
wonder how that'll play out today. Nana and I just put an angel food cake in the oven for
them.
Part Two: The Cleanup.
Later
We spent our day chipping out insulation (we had a spray-foam kind, which is
solid and purple!). Lydia brought over an anniversary cake for lunch, and we ate the
angel food cake at supper.
Popa and I ended up doing some running around. I had to go to school and clean
out my locker (I was on exam break, and hadn't cleaned out my locker yet. All of the
remaining exams were cancelled, so the only reason why I went to school was to grab
my magnets, binders and whatnot). While I was walking through the hallways, I saw
students just sitting around with their laptops, playing games and being on Facebook
like they were before the flood. It made me furious...they were just doing nothing, as if
all Hell wasn't breaking loose in half the city! I wanted to go shove their laptops closed
and tell them to go help some poor soul rip their basement apart instead of
accomplishing nothing. But I didn't...I held my tongue and grabbed my belongings from
my locker.
After that, Popa and I headed to the Grassroots market (Mum is a vendor there
every Tuesday) and explained to the organizer that she wouldn't make it today because
we were flooded. Then we stopped at the bottle depot to drop off a bunch of bottles
from our garage.
That's all I did today.
June 26th, 2013. Wednesday.
As of today, our basement is completely gutted and all the insulation is out. Not
too many people (only 3 - 4, actually) came over to help, which was okay because now
we're moving on to cleaning everything out and getting ready to move back in. Mum and
Dad can't wait to get back into our own house.
I didn't get out of bed until 10:20am today. After I got up, Mum and I hurried over
to our house and started cleaning. She and Popa went to Totem/Rona/some other
places looking for electrical supplies, multiple times throughout the day. Lydia helped
me clean out my room - we completely emptied my closet and started scrubbing the
floor. Emma and her friend dropped by for a bit, too.
After lunch, Lydia had to go, and I lost all cleaning motivation.
Today was the first day that we didn't have a ton of workers, and we were way
too tired to think of making supper. We were thinking of going out when our friend Cathy
dropped off a pot of stew. Yum!
After supper, Jane came over and visited for a bit, just to catch up and whatnot,
and then Mum sent me to bed where I'm writing now.
Since this whole thing started, my eczema's been acting up.
June 27th, 2013. Thursday.
It's been exactly a week, as of 6:30pm tonight, since we were evacuated. My
sense of time feels all wonky...I feel like time has been passing really quickly on a
whole, but each day is taking forever to get through. Maybe this has something to do
with the trauma?
This morning, Nana, Mum, and I went to the Bowness Community Centre. Mum
said that it would be a good experience for me (I can't help but think of Calvin's dad
from Calvin and Hobbes). While we were parking I saw a military vehicle. The
government has been sending out military (from Edmonton) to help people down here. I
took a picture of it on my phone.
When we got inside, it was an absolute zoo! Very different from Monday. There
were tables set up with everything we could possibly need for cleanup; mops, shovels,
brooms, soap, detergent, paper towel, gloves, ladies' products, you name it! We picked
up mops, a first-aid kit, bandaids, gloves, protective glasses, ventilating masks, laundry
detergent, and paper towel. I also picked up a copy of the "Welcome Home" packets
(we got one on Monday, too) to keep in here for posterity.
At around 4:30am today, train bridge in the South-East started collapsing - get
this - WITH A TRAIN ON IT. The train contained flammable materials. The bridge
stabilized around lunch today, but the South-East is in complete lockdown again and no
one is allowed in or out (yet). Apparently the train can be removed, but it's a "delicate"
process and it'll take a long time.
That bridge was inspected and deemed safe on Monday.
Nana and I walked down to "The Pool" a few minutes ago. There's a ton of
activity going on down there; basically, what was happening at our place a few days
ago. We only stayed for a few minutes.
Later
They just said in the news that the Bonneybrook waste-water treatment plant is
shut down, because it's too close to the derailed train. This is NOT GOOD. I've been to
the plant (on a field trip for science) and I know how important it is to making our city
function. I know there's probably another plant in the city, but I think Bonneybrook is the
main one.
Later
The plant is open now.
June 28th, 2013. Friday.
By the time I got up, Popa and Dad were already gone. So, Mum, Nana, and I
drove over to the community centre again to pick up some more supplies. Since the last
time we were there, they set up some tables full of food, so we picked up our lunch
there, too. Then we went back to our place and dropped everything off.
When Nana and I came home, I cleaned out her video cabinet and ended up
watching movies all evening and into the night.
June 29th, 2013. Saturday.
When I got up (8:30am), everyone was gone except Nana. I ended up watching
Aladdin all morning. At some point, Nana and I went over to our place, where I picked
up a hamper for my laundry (I've been using a stuff-sack, which isn't exactly big
enough), and then to Safeway to pick up lunch (and Popsicles!).
It's been so hot lately. We hit at least 27*C today, and it feels hotter because
everything is so humid and dusty. The city's been using street cleaners to spray water
on the streets (to keep the dust down) - even though the streets were covered in water
just a week ago! How crazy is that?!? Besides, the street cleaners are mostly just
kicking up more dust instead of keeping it down.
About halfway through the afternoon, Nana and I saw a McDonald's truck driving
down the road towards "The Pool", so we followed it. It turns out that they were setting
up a carnival for the younger kids in the neighbourhood (it wasn't a food truck. It was a
relief truck from the same division as the Ronald McDonald House), so Nana told them
that most of the neighbourhood kids are actually pretty grown-up now (like me!).
Apparently they went further down the street later, to where there's more little kids.
After chatting with the volunteers for a bit, we went back home and had a muchneeded Popsicle.
This evening I puttered around for a bit, and now I'm writing next to the open
dining-room window. There's a breeze floating in, and it smells wonderful.
There's been quite a few emergency vehicles racing around with their sirens
blazing lately. I hope everything's okay.
June 30th, 2013. Sunday.
It feels like forever since I went to church last, even though it was only last
Sunday.
The Mexico team did a presentation for the Sunday School this morning.
When the service was over, some team members went out to the Youth Trailer to
get the rest of our Mexico vaccines (administered by a doctor). There was an extra
tetanus shot, so Mum got it, since the Red Cross had recommended that all flood
victims get tetanus shots.
July 1st, 2013. Monday.
Happy Canada Day! All of the Canada Day events were scheduled to be held at
Prince's Island Park, but since Prince's was flooded they relocated everything to Shaw
Millennium Park.
A couple days ago, the government (I'm not sure if it's provincial or federal)
announced that they would distribute pre-loaded debit cards to flood victims. Today we
found out that only victims who have been displaced from their homes for 7+ days are
eligible (which we are).
So Mum, Dad, and I went to the Bowness High School today to pick up these
debit cards. We found out that they have cheques too, so we got cheques instead, since
Dad had heard that there was a $400 spending max on the cards.
We got $3,000; $1,250 per adult and $500 per child. There was a huge lineup.
Then we went back to the community centre to pick up anti-mould spray and
lunch. Mum also chatted with some people from Samaritan's Purse and found out that
they can clean our basement for us.
When we got back to Nana and Popa's, I holed up in my room (conveniently in
the basement) because it was so hot.
July 2nd, 2013. Tuesday.
This morning, Popa woke me up because Dad had gone to work, Nana and Mum
had gone grocery shopping, and he was heading over to our place to work and he didn't
want me to wake up and worry because no one was home.
Around lunch Jane came over and we (Nana, Mum, Jane, and I) ended up sitting
with our ice packs (it's still super hot) watching the news.
After lunch, Popa dropped Mum and I off at the Grassroots market, where Dad
met us for supper. When the market was done we came back to Nana's and unloaded.
July 3rd, 2013. Wednesday.
Today wasn't too eventful. I mowed the lawn again.
After lunch, Mum and I went to the Parkdale Farmer's Market (she sells her
products there, too). I do face painting there every week.
About halfway through the afternoon, one of the vendors (she operates a
greenhouse) was chatting with the market organizers about the flood, and I told her we
were flood victims. She ended up giving us a bag of groceries because we were
flooded. Nice! Fresh vegetables!
Mum's hoping that we'll be moved back into our house by Friday, since we're
having family come visit. Tomorrow we're going back to clean up. My room is a mess
there, so I'm going with her.
Today the community centre shut their doors, so we'll have to buy whatever
supplies we need from now on.
July 4th, 2013. Thursday.
When I woke up this morning, Dad and Mum had left to go apply for a Provincial
money grant.
Later, Mum and I went to our place and started cleaning (Dad went to work). I
also cleaned the handrail on the stairs going to the basement, since it was covered in
mud.
Mum and Dad spent the evening moving their belongings back to our house.
Mum really just wants to sleep in her own bed now. I'm staying at Nana and Popa's for a
while still, since it's cleaner and I'm quite settled in.
Today I received a parcel that my great-uncle sent me. It had two Narnia posters
in it! I'm pretty sure they're copies of Pauline Bayne's original illustrations. One is a (very
detailed) map of Narnia, and the other is a poster of Aslan with the quote "he is not a
tame lion" on it.
When I opened the package, I almost started to cry. I lost my Chronicles of
Narnia books (and they are among my favourite stories) in the flood, as well as almost
all of the Narnia reference books I had.
Those posters made me incredibly happy.
Gisela and her family came over today to take some things from our house into
storage, since we need all the space we can get in our house. Emma's coming over
tomorrow to pick up some boxes that she lent me to use, and lend me a suitcase to use
in Mexico.
July 5th, 2013. Friday.
Today the Calgary Stampede officially kicked off. Half the city thinks that the
officials are crazy to try and pull it off due to the flood. City workers have been working
around the clock to get it up and running. Parts of the grounds are still blocked off,
though, and the Stampede on a whole is smaller this year (especially in attendance).
Tomorrow is the Bowness Stampede parade, and I'm looking forward to that.
Today I was actually the first one up! Surprise!
After lunch, Auntie Raija helped me clean my room, and she also cleaned out the
bathtub in the basement (it was full of mud). My room is incredibly clean now, and I can
start moving back in.
Nana and I also started cleaning up some of my Build-A-Bear clothes...they were
in the basement, but since most of them are washable, they should be fine. Some
things I'll have to throw out, and some of it will have to be washed by hand, but I think
most of it should be salvageable. We only found one bag of the clothes, and I had at
least two.
It's been raining all evening. Dad also had to bail water out of the basement this
evening. Apparently one neighbourhood had to evacuate again.
Part 3: The Transition
July 6th, 1013. Saturday.
Today was the Bowness Stampede parade. Nana, Popa, Raija, and I went to see
it together. When I wasn't retrieving candy for the little kids who couldn't reach it from
where they were, I actually got quite a bit of candy for myself - I got a small bagful.
Surprising, since I'm 14 years old now - not exactly a kid!
After the parade, we went back to Nana and Popa's and had brunch with Mum
and Dad.
I worked quite hard cleaning today, and now my room is spotless.
After I finished in my room, I went out to our garage (some things that we
recovered from the basement were drying out there) to look for the rest of my BABW
clothes (all of the dresses that I had, and the rest of the accessories) - and I found my
Thomas the Tank Engine train set! I've had that train set since I was 4 or 5 years old.
Unfortunately, it's all wood, so Nana (who was helping me look) said that we had better
pull it out of there before it rotted away.
Raija and I spent the rest of the day scrubbing my train set and laying it out to
dry.
July 7th, 2013. Sunday.
After church, we came back to Nana and Popa's for lunch, and then we went
back up to the church for my Mexico meeting, which took all afternoon.
When we came home, I started journaling. Nana has me on a timer now, even
though I keep telling her you can't rush journaling. I have less than a minute left, so I
think I'll close off here. She's adamant that I go to bed when the timer ends.
July 8th, 2013. Monday.
Yesterday I felt really rushed in my journaling, and I'm scared that I left
something important out.
I meant to move back home yesterday, but I didn't get around to it. My only plan
today is to pack up and move; I want to be living in my own house before I go to Mexico.
Around 9:30am I started packing. After a while I noticed that my stomach and
head were feeling weird, so I lay down for a bit. Mum came in after a bit and moved my
suitcases off of the bed to I could lay down properly. Raija made me drink some water
(but I wasn't thirsty!). I wavered between sleeping, staring at the ceiling, and reading
until 3:30pm, when I started feeling better, so I got up and kept packing.
Mum and I ended up going back to our house for supper (it was stir-fry and rice),
and then back to Nana's to pick up my belongings. When we got back, we did laundry,
and I started unpacking.
I'm making a list of all the books I lost in the flood (that I can remember). It's on
the last page of this journal.
Owen said that when we're in Mexico, he's going to expect us to journal daily.
That shouldn't be too hard for me!
Part 4: The Recovery
July 9th, 2013. Tuesday.
This morning I woke up when Mum and Dad had their showers - both times! Still,
it's nice to be home.
This morning I cleaned up the main bathroom. After that, Nana and Popa took
me to the currency exchange at the mall so that I could get American money and
Mexican pesos to spend on the trip.
After lunch, we went to the Grassroots market. It was kind of hot earlier in the
afternoon, but a breeze kicked in later and things cooled down.
After we unloaded all of Mum's products at Nana and Popa's (we have nowhere
to keep them at our place), I packed up my train set. We have family coming into town
tomorrow, and the boys love train sets, and mine is a little too fragile to be played with
at the moment. They're staying in town until Friday, and while they're here they're going
to be checking out their grandmother's house, since she lives in High River.
5 days until Mexico!
July 10th, 2013. Wednesday.
This morning a man came from an insurance something-or-other to inspect our
basement, or something like that. He spent quite a while going over the things we lost in
the flood with my parents. While that was going on, I put my face painting supplies in
order and finished moving back in.
I had a really good day at market today. Cathy showed up with her grandson,
and I did a full-faced Spiderman on him. Too cute! My cousins came, too, and I painted
them.
July 11th, 2013. Thursday.
My aunt and uncle spent the day in High River, helping out.
Today, I biked over to Nana's, and we (Nana, my cousins, and I) walked down to
the library. When we got back, the boys watched some DVDs that we signed out, and I
read for a bit.
Right after lunch, we were heading out the door to go to Safeway, and Mum got
back from supply shopping (for her business).
She was pretty upset. She told us that she had just been up to one of her
suppliers to replenish some of the stock she had lost in the flood. She asked one of the
employees (who happened to be new there) if it was possible for flood victims to have a
discount on replacing supplies that they had lost. The lady didn't know, so she asked
the manager. The manager came over, looked at Mum, laughed, and said "Wow, some
people will say just anything for a discount!". She said it right in front of the new
employees and the customers, too. Mum said that it made her feel completely and
utterly humiliated, even though we actually were flooded. She walked out without
purchasing everything on her list. Later, Dad sent them a complaint email.
July 12th, 2013. Friday.
Two more days until Mexico!
July 14th, 2013. Sunday.
I'm just a bundle of nerves right now.
This morning the entire Mexico team was COMMISSIONED in front of the
church! I got Mum to take pictures for my Mexico scrapbook.
I'm so full of energy...I know I'll crash on the plane, but I don't think I'll sleep until
then. I have to get up at 2am tomorrow so I can be at the church on time.
I can't wait!
Part 5: The Rebuild (epilogue)
I returned from Mexico to find my basement cleaned and scrubbed. I spent my
summer making extra pocket money and helping Popa work in the basement, and
learned how to install drywall when the time came at the end of August.
After much deliberation, my family decided to pull out of the provincial
government grant application process.
My mother, grandmother, Jane, and I went book shopping at thrift stores one
day. We stopped at many thrift stores and went straight to the book section, purchasing
every book that I had lost or meant to read. Later, Nana surprised me with a used set of
the Chronicles of Narnia books, much to my utter delight.
Upon returning to school, I found only one other student who had been flooded,
and no one else really understood what the victims went through. Recently, my gym
class was talking about how they were glad that they got to skip their PATs. I felt upset,
because to me, taking my PATs would have meant that my basement was still existent.
We are now painting the basement, and, along with the rest of the community,
rebuilding our lives.