As I peruse my pictures from Virginia, I'm overloaded with memories (good and bad) and overwhelmed with the stories that could and should be told. Five years of living comes with lots to write about. Where to start...where to start?
Before we moved to Richmond, Steve and his brother Gary (also had been accepted into dental school) flew there and scouted out apartments for our families. They did a REALLY good job. They signed leases at a brand new complex on the west end of Richmond. It was in one of the newest nicest neighborhoods in Richmond. It was clean, safe, big and wonderful. We had a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment with a nice bright kitchen and small balcony. It was the nicest place we had ever rented. It was perfect for our little family of four...but we had signed the lease on a special deal the complex was having, and there was no way we could afford the renew the lease after our year was up.
In Richmond, the LDS dental students congregated in two main areas. One was still on the west end at at the Chelsea apartments and one was on the south side of Richmond at the Meadowbrook apartments. The Chelsea apartments were slightly new and nicer, but the Meadowbrook apartments were bigger and cheaper. In late summer of 2004, we moved to the south side into a three level town home. We were welcomed with open arms from the south side dental student crowd.
Not long after we moved in, a large tropical depression stalled over Richmond and dumped over 9 inches of rain in one day. It flooded downtown Richmond and threatened to overwhelm Falling Creek Dam just up from our apartment complex. In fact, the creek down stream from the Falling Creek Reservoir ran right behind our building. We watched that afternoon as the water got higher and higher...closer to our back door. That evening, we were evacuated from our apartments and sent to the local high school gym designated as a make-shift shelter.
Steve and I quickly packed a few belongings and food for us and our two little boys. We also moved anything of value from the basement level of our town house to the top two levels. It was horribly muggy and hot that day and I felt massive guilt as I pulled two little sleeping boys out of their beds in only their diaper and underwear to put them in their car seats to leave our home. We were only at the shelter for maybe an hour (I was in hell being there- kids running around, nowhere to sleep but the blankets we brought...I knew it was going to be the longest night of my life), when members of our ward came and pulled every dental student family out of the shelter and took us to their homes to sleep for the night. We couldn't make it up to the west end to stay at Steve's brothers house because we heard the roads were closed.
We stayed at a ladies home with maybe four other dental families. The only room left for us was the room where this lady's cats lived, ate...and did their business. She had tried to cover the cat smell (she had quite a few cats) with massive amounts of Fabreeze. To this day, the smell of Fabreeze makes me gag...and I hate cats even more than I did to begin with. The next morning, we heard that many of the apartments near Falling Creek had indeed flooded, a bridge had been washed away and the Dam was at risk of breaking. If it did break, everything we owned would be lost. I looked at my family and knew without a doubt that none of our stuff mattered. My husband and two boys were the only important things. It helped that everything we owned was junk anyway. (student poverty is comforting in someways) I did however wonder why in the world we felt we were supposed to move to the south side. Being evacuated was one of the scariest things I had ever been through.
Later that afternoon, the water started to recede, the dam did not break and we were allowed to return to our apartments. By some miracle, escaped flooding. The water came just feet from our door. The buildings on the right and the left of us had been overcome with water on the bottom level. The way the creek curved around our building spared us the damage many of our friends had to clean up. Steve spend the afternoon and next day helping other families clean up and throw out damaged property. I tried helping the best I could by taking in meals to those next to us.
After that week, I became afraid of the weather in Virginia. We had survived a hurricane the year before...our power just flickered on the West End. (Because our first neighborhood was so new, there were no overgrown trees to knock down lines. Many of our friends didn't have power for up to eight days.) But this flooding put a whole new perspective on emergency preparedness for me. After that, I had our 72 hour kids prepped and updated every year. I also made a list of what I wanted to take next time we were evacuated (if ever) and what priority everything had....computers, photos, stuff like that. Luckily, we never encountered a storm like the one we had that September again, but, I learned to dread hurricane season with a passion. I never truly felt safe there again. (Idaho weather is awesome.)
This picture is the only digital one I have where you can see where the damage was done. I have many other pictures of the water, washed out bridges and flooding...but they are all negatives at the moment. This picture was taken in spring of 2005, months after the flooding. The entire grassy area where our dental school party is being held was covered with water...right up to where our building was.
The black railing is our apartment balcony. Falling Creek runs across the top of the picture. You can see the downed trees that were cause by massive amounts of water from the storm. The building at the right corner of the picture was flooded horribly. Down stream, the apartment tennis courts were completely ruined. The courts were a rippled crumpled mess. I will never underestimate the power of water ever again.
