I’ve got to tell you I’m one lucky guy.  Considering I just spent yesterday dragging items out of my basement that were soaking wet because it flooded, you probably wouldn’t expect to hear that.  So let me explain.

Two weeks ago a neighbor was trying to take down a damaged tree that was leaning precariouslly towards his house and was having all kinds of problems.So, three of us walked over there with our chainsaws in hand and an hour later that old red maple fit inside his trailer.

Last weekend my dog wandered off after a squirrel, which was my fault for not having him on his leash.  But, he was listening and had stayed in the yard for a couple of hours until said squirrel made an appearance.  While looking for him, some of my neighbors found out he was missing and went looking for him too.  I managed to track him down and he came running when I called him, but the fact that they were willing to drop everything and look for my dog was really nice of them.

Then there was this weekend.  While driving home from Appleton on Saturday we got a call on our cell from our neighbor saying that the storms were terrible and we had lost power. 

No power = no sump pump. 

No sump pump + 7.5 inches of rain = flooded basment.

Water was racing down the streets of our subdivision.  We tried 3 different rooutes before we found one we could drive through to get to our house.  We got home to find about 6 inches of water in our basement.  Coolers, toys, the dog’s food dish all went floating by the bottom of the stairs.  We went about the task of removing everything we could to get it to dry out and making a pile of everything that was lost and destined for the Suprior Waste Managment truck. 

Power was resstored roughly around 11:00 and the sump pump made short work of the standing water once it was running.  Now we had to figure out what to do with all of our stuff.  Mind you our neighbors were dealing with the same issues, and 4 of them came over to see if we needed any help at 12:30 at night.  We all decided we should return to our homes, have a drink, and re-convene in the morning.  Yesterday, people up and down the street were helping each other haul stuff away, rip up carpeting, carry out furniture, helping suck up water with their shop vacs, etc.

There are times we’ve thought about moving out of our 50’s ranch for a house with some bigger bedrooms or 2 full baths, but I couldn’t trade these neighbors for anything.  Talk about people who’ve got your back.