My dad and stepmom have always been the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of people. Whatever situations they have faced, they have always made a way to come out the other side of it. A little over five years ago, Ryan and I took my dad to West Virginia to enjoy one of our favorite places on earth, riding side-by-sides. During that trip, we saw his eyes get that same twinkle in them that ours had when we were up there, cut off from the rest of the world, riding the most beautiful mountaintops you can imagine. It wasn't long after our trip that he started thinking this might be a place he would like to one day retire to. He brought my stepmom up, whose family is from West Virginia, and she fell in love just like the rest of us.
Before too long, we found ourselves looking for houses for them so we wouldn't have to spend so much renting cabins, etc. And that's when we found their little home away from home! It was perfect for them! It sat right on the main highway, there was a serene little creek in the backyard with a walking path down to the water. We all fell in love with this little brick home that would soon become a getaway for them, for us, and for many other family and friends.
My dad used some of the money he saved up for retirement to purchase the home and to make some necessary improvements to it because it had been sitting empty for a while. During the spring, summer, and fall, this is where we all were every single weekend! We even bought the home across the street from them, but because we loved the time spent with them sitting up for hours after all of our bedtimes on their back deck or around the fire-pit, we turned around and sold the home we had just bought. I remember my dad saying over and over...why would y'all stay over there when there's an empty bedroom here and y'all won't have the bills or upkeep of a house. We spent many hours sitting on that back deck, laughing until we couldn't breathe. We spent so much time down in the creek playing with the dogs or sitting in lawn chairs just enjoying the cool mountain water.
My stepmom would stock the fridge and pantry with all our favorite things, she would cook us all breakfast and dinner, and she would never take our money when we offered to pay for the groceries.
Which leads me to this...Saturday we were all sitting in our garage and dad checked their cameras up there. It was hard to tell because of the camera position, but we could see some water rushing in the top right of the camera frame. I remember him making the comment that he hoped it wouldn't come up over the bank into the yard. Later that evening, I woke up to texts and a missed call from my dad. My heart sank when I heard him say, "Well Jess, she's flooded"...I could hear the crack in his voice. Throughout the night and into Sunday, their basement filled with water up to the floor joists. The water rushed around their home and into the front door, then it started coming up through the pipes. Now they are left with literally four inches of mud in the yard, probably a foot of mud in the basement along with standing water still, mud throughout the entire home, broken pipes, broken floor joists that you can squeeze water out of like a sponge.
They went up there today to try and salvage anything they could from inside the home. The water did not reach the mattresses, and the bed frames were metal, so I think they are able to save those. But everything else is gone, all the furniture, the standing floor heaters and air conditioners, the rugs, the carpet is ruined, the real hardwood floors can maybe be salvaged, but they are starting to bow up in places. There are places in the floor you can feel are already starting to buckle. They have placed fans throughout the home to try and dry up what mud/water they couldn't shovel out, and they did go ahead and rip up some of the carpet so the fans could try and dry it out.
I have a feeling my dad isn't going to like this, he's going to call me and wonder why I would create a GoFundMe. But I feel like we can all help them with this, and for once they won't have to shoulder 100% of the burden of trying to find a way to make everything work out. For once, maybe the grace and help that they have shown many people will come back for them. We want to be able to cover some of the costs that come with cleaning, replacing all the plumbing that was ripped out, fixing parts of the subfloor under the carpet, replacing the carpets, fixing the doors that were ripped out of the door frames, replacing the sheetrock along the bottom of the walls so it doesn't mold, fixing broken floor joists.
Even if it's a prayer or a share, we will take it! They need to feel the love at this moment, because within hours they watched, helplessly, on the security cameras, as their retirement plan went underwater.