It poured rain all day Friday, and by Friday night the town was flooding. Saturday morning, a neighboring town was under water and we were contending with a flooded-out property.
I went to sleep around 11 and at 12:30 Masha woke me up and told me to look outside. There was about a foot of water gushing through our yard. Let me give you a low-down of our property: It's about 1/2 acre lot in a sort of mini-valley (or giant ditch) along the side of the road with a big gate and brick fence in the front. The whole thing is fenced. The house stands on about 4 feet of cement foundation, and the kitchen is in an outbuilding, on about 1/2 foot of foundation. In the back of the property there's a cement ditch and across that, a gazebo. There are fruit trees and a garden.
The water started gushing out of the ditch towards the road. When I was awoken it was about a foot and by the time I got to the porch to look outside it was already three feet. The lumber pile from our kitchen project was floating away and I saw the doghouse go down the street like a boat. One of the two cars was stuck half-way up the driveway, and the water was rising quickly. Masha and I waded into the water, up to our waists, and ran up onto the street (which was about 5 ft in elevation higher than our lawn), barefoot and soaked. We ran to find any kind of help we could so the car wouldn't sink. We rounded up a couple young guys out having a beer and a couple of our friends arrived. It took the Emergency Services to finally tow the car out backwards. The other car was so far under water it was floating, and right now it's in pieces in the driveway, drying out. It's still unclear if either car will run again.
Meanwhile, the water kept rising and the second car was underwater. Masha, Tanya and I were on the street watching as the men tried to keep everything from floating away. We eventually went back into the house through the window, only to discover that in the blink of an eye there was 6in of water in the house. Miraculously, Tanya managed to save my computer, which was on the floor, so only my charger cable went for a swim. I scrambled for my documents so I wouldn't get deported; for the most part, my stuff is ok but there was an inch of fine silt on everything once the water finally receded. And of course, there was no power anywhere in town, so it was all in the dark with flashlights.
About 3 in the morning Dima took me and and a couple guests who were staying with us overnight (lucky them) to the church, where there are apartments on the top floor. I was so full of adrenaline that I had trouble sleeping even thought I was exhausted.
When I woke up, Masha was there (she'd come some time later in the night) and fixing breakfast. Chicken hearts, as if my night wasn't bad enough. Though actually it was really tasty. We ate and our friend Semyon (a different Semyon) took us to the house. Everything was a total disaster. There was a foot of mud in the yard, and three inches of water and silt in the kitchen. We worked all day trying to wash everything and hang it out to dry, or just to put things back in order. The water was so strong an ice cream stand washed into our yard (over the fence) along with other miscellaneous items that didn't belong to us.
In short, it's a total disaster, but not even the worst in the region. In the hardest-hit town, the whole town was underwater within ten minutes; we're hearing that at least 1000 people drowned and the toll keeps climbing. In Novorossyisk they've reported only 2 deaths, but it's likely much higher.
Right now, Masha and I are apartment hopping, going from one dry place to another. I don't know when we'll be able to go home again. So pray please. Pray for us, pray for the people in the region. It's a very devastating natural disaster.
I'll keep you updated.
Пока ребята, Russian Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment