Flood Update - More Photos and a Video:

[amphi]

If you have the time, please look at this video interview with my friend. It was taken before I arrived with much-needed M715 having air, power, and water onboard.

http://www.chronline.com/multimedia/valleydamage.php


This is my M715 at my home loaded with water, air compressor, and generator ready to go to my friend's home for clean up and repair. It's kind of ironic that one of the most need things, after a flood, is water.



This is what I saw as I pulled up to the house. The cars and trucks parked on the left are volunteer's vehicles.



The M715 in position ready to work.





It was my job to get the heat into the house by getting the heat pump going while others use the water and power from the M715.









Gary

[OliveDrab]

Good luck with that heat pump... I'm sure you had make all new connections on all the wire joints... If you make it run without any new parts your a hero...!

[k8icu]

When it's that bad you almost think it's better to just start fresh. I'm surpised his insurance company isn't writing the house off as a loss.

[Binford]

What about mold issues, Gary? Is there some sort of spray they can apply, or will drying it out pronto prevent mold/mildew in the house?

And is that the water line about 10 feet up the barn wall?!

How'd your place fare? You're somewhat up that hill, eh?

[Binford]

Renee Raymond in the video is your friend? What a guy! Suffered all that loss, uninsured, and he's still got such an UP attitude!

Good friend to have.

Is there anything we could do to help?

[amphi]

Thanks again for the replies!!

We were lucky -- got the heat pump running (for awhile) without any new parts.

No insurance at all for water damage.

We are hoping drying it out pronto will prevent mold/mildew in the house. We completely gutted the interior – removed all sheetrock, insulation, and flooring. We have propane heaters running around the clock to get it dry as quickly as possible. A local farm store (Dell's) gave us free propane as they had a bunch of full old style bottles without the pressure relief valve.

Yep that is the waterline you see on the barn in the photo.

Our place is high on a hill and all is fine – had water running thru the garage floor for a day but it quickly drained off and dried.

Yes that is my friend Renee in the video. He really is a good guy.

Don't really know of anything you can help with at this point but thanks a bunch for the generous offer Tim.

More pics.

Inside gutted


Gutters are full

[Kaiserjeeps]

Wow Gary! I wish I were still unemployed so I could have grabbed one of the trucks and come up to help. I hope things work out OK.

My Mom lives in Centralia right by where I-5 was flooded. some of her friends had to be air lifted from their roof tops. All the farmers that lived by the river were wiped out. One guy mom said described the rising water and taking his 150 cows up to high ground. The cows saw the barn as safety and went back. He was telling what it sounded like listening to 150 cows drown while he and his family sat on the second floor inside the house. That was their lively hood, I guess they made special organic cheeses with them. That was a good storm. It wacked a lot of people. No damage here although I thought I was going to loose a 10X20 temp carport. Dueces make good wind blocks in tandem with ratchet straps... Good luck to you guys.

[amphi]

Thanks for the good thought Al – I'm glad your mom is ok and you didn't loose anything!!

Actually we had a lot of help because, on Saturday, about 400 volunteers from the Olympia area Mormon Church showed up in the valley to help. The picture above, where I pulled up to the house, is typical for all houses in the valley. Hundreds of absolute strangers helped that day.

I listened to the airlifts, on the scanner, live. It was a like a nightmare. They had seven helicopters from the National Guard, Airlift Medevac, and The Coast Guard in the air all operating in the same area at night. When they first arrived on the scene they had no direct radio communications with our EOC (emergency operations center). They quickly loaded each chopper with a local Sheriffs Deputy equipped with a hand held battery operated portable radio (this was an absolute joke). Trapped people were calling EOC from cell phones indicating their location. I listened to the radio traffic where people were going from the first floor to the second to the attic and eventually swam to the roof. EOC was initially giving out street addresses to helicopter in the air at night (can you imagine). They figured out that wouldn't' t work and began translating locations to longitude and latitude coordinates for GPS locating. But these are long numbers like "forty six dash thirty two dash zero eight point two seven north – one twenty three dash zero eight dash zero three point two eight". They had one heck of a time getting these numbers communicated with all of the background noise in the choppers and at EOC. I could hear both ends pretty good with my earpiece. I found myself yelling in the scanner. My wife thought I was nuts.

In spite of it all they did a good job, with airlift, because no lives were lost due to being trapped.

I heard about the cows you mention. I understand over a thousand lost all told. Some dairy farmers were able to get some out before the high waters hit but these are still not back to the farms because there is about 8 to 10 inches of silt and mud covering the fields. Don't what they are going to do about it.

[Roy]

wow..

[vacca rabite]

Stuff like this alwyas makes me put the things that annoy me into perspective. Makes my burst 2nd floor radiator look downright trivial.

Zach