We bathed with a gallon of water, rinse, lather, rinse. My coffee, yes I must have coffee, was on a canister of propane that I had set outside on the deck,to boil water or to cook. We had a Jon boat tied to the 12th step. We had a private dock I guess you would say.

To flush the toilet, you had to get a bucket and go outside and scoop enough in it, so that you could flush the toilet.  We tried not to go to the bathroom upstairs, that’s for sure.

We had to boat 500 ft from our house out to the street to take our cars throught the State Forest to get onto 50.  We would get what we needed for a day or two at the near by store, and lug it from our car to the boat.

I wanted to cry. Being in the dark for so long, living in a home that you didn’t want to leave, and if you did you were not sure of what would be missing, due to people taking advantage of an empty house.

As the water subsided 5 months later, there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel! We had called the electric company to come out and put in an above ground pole. I was so happy. Then things started to turn for the worst again.

The rains started coming down and there was still water in our yard. They told us that they could not get to us due to the water and rain. I told them,”your tires are big, you get out here now!” They arrived in boots and did the job.

Then there was light! We were so excited, I must of turned every light on in the house, vaccumed, did laundry, had the T.V. on, the radio,flushed the toilets and took a shower.

The storms still come and the yard still gets flooded, but only 1 month at most. Not very often though. I did have an 80 ft. ramp built going out from my house so that we don’t need to boat.  El Nino was the worst and the others were minor.

We still live here  and if we didn’t love it so much we would be some place dry~