We lost over half of our stuff to a (uninsured) flood.

Hey, I'm Ryan. I don't want to be doing this but several online friends have suggested I do this so here I am, out of my comfort zone, asking strangers for money.

We suffered a flood, and did not have flood insurance (somehow we have volcano insurance in Indiana though?!)

The worst part is the irreplaceable things we lost. Family photos from both sides, childhood gifts, things of my late step-father.

Saturday April 5th, aver several days of rain with flood warnings I woke around 3:30 AM and looked at my phone, I noticed "heavy rainfall starting at your location" or similar on my phone 1 hour before, I also noticed the internet was out so I got up and went to check the basement. I opened the door to find 3-4 feet of water in the basement, the creek 2 blocks over had grown from 2-3 feet to approximately 20 feet and was rushing by at an alarming speed, especially when viewing it via the maglight in my car. By 9am there were still 2-3 feet of water in my basement. By noon the sump pump had caught up and had pumped all of the water out.

Around 6pm, the basement began flooding again as the rain had started to back up, this time only a few inches before the sump pump caught up after the rain stopped.

2 weeks prior to this flood I had quit my job to YouTube full-time, a disaster like this was definitely not planned for.

The washer and dryer are dead, the furnace control board was under water, my key lights took water damage, I lost solar controllers and some lifepo4 batteries, my wife lost thousands in clothing/yarn/fabric. My entire record collection, mostly of rare local punk records, was entirely under water and covered in mud and chemicals (bleach, CLR, laundry detergent, fabric softener, etc that had leaked from containers in the water). A TV, vintage monitors, some vintage gaming consoles, 2 BikeErgs ($1100 each, computers don't work, and the fans are full of grit), an under-desk treadmill from a sponsor that I was filming a video for, several outlets were under water, etc.

From renting a dumpster (which we filled and didn't get everything in), buying 2 dehumidifiers and some fans (as our dehumidifier and fans were also under water) we are already out about $1000, replacing the washer and dryer will be another $1000~, the furnace could very well end up costing $3000-7500. Then, replacing the outlets, my key lights, some of the clothing was clothing my wife is currently wearing this year, my wife crochets a TON and uses our circular knitting machines, and there was the motherload of yarn lost. We even had to throw away several shelves of our home-canned food because it was under nasty green-brown water and we just did not feel that we could safely clean the jars and safely consume the contents. We also threw out a few dozen empty jars/lids/gaskets because we don't know what sort of chemical contamination occurred. We lost our excalibur dehydrator ($500), camping pads, a camping cot, 3 inflatable mattresses (although we are trying to salvage these), etc.

All in, we had to throw away about 600 cubic feet of stuff, and still have more that needs to be thrown away.

"Why didn't you wash the clothing and yarn?" well, my wife took all of the quilts her mother had made and given her to the laundromat Sunday, as well as a few loads of salvaged clothing, and we spent almost $40 just washing that stuff.

We can survive without these things (although it is getting below freezing tonight as I write this, fun without heat, hopefully the pipes don't freeze, maybe I should go shut the well pump off and drain the pipes before I go to bed), we still have a place to sleep and some of our stuff but we legitimately lost more than half of our belongings.

If you want to give a few bucks, it would be greatly appreciated. If times are tough for you, go watch 1 or 2 of my videos on my YouTube channel, and I'll earn a few cents, and hey, it's something.