Evacuated 2011 - Day 25 - July 16, 2011

Last night after work we went to the house and decided our mission for the night was to remove as much of the carpet on the main floor s we could. We succeeded. We pulled out all the carpet in the dining room, living room, den, hallway and entry way. It was a messy job. I would not have believed that carpet padding could hold so much water and weigh as much as it did. We have never seen the floring below the carpet. The original hardwood floors are there and so far it appears there if very little warpage. We will be restoring them to their original condition. We have a few spots to patch in where the original floor has been filled in with other wood, but these are small areas. We wanted to get the carpet off so the floors would dry.
Most of the slippery muck that has been deposited on our yard, sidewalks and driveway as dried. It is now almost like shoveling thin concrete and it leaves a black residue behind. I believe our task for a while today will be to start on the garage. The basement pumping will probably begin tomorrow. Last night the water level in the basement was about 2 feet lower than the day before. I seems to be draining away on its own. When we left last night we drove through the neighborhood. Within 1 1/2 blocks of our house there are 10 houses with collapsed basements. 5 of these are on our block. As bad as our situation is, others have it worse. A number of trees are down. The ground was just to wet to hold them.