The tornado cleanup

The end of November and the month of December was a blur.  We had three days to clean up our yard before the forecasted rain and snow fall.  The snow started in December this winter and did not stop until April.  What a winter to try and rebuild after a disaster.

We were at the house almost everyday for the first three weeks, the weather was bitter cold.  We worked with all of our friends and relatives to try and winterize what we had left.  The boats were put under the pool liner, we recycled the pool, copper from the house and as much metal and aluminum cans as we could fit into the truck and on the trailer.  We even recycled the water heater.  I don't have pictures from the trip to the recycle plant, but we made $388 dollars for our 1/2 day trip.  Woohoo, only 278,622 dollars to break even.  What a wonderful feeling.
:)

As the month wore on we decided to try and pull the basement subfloor out.  We hooked a chain to the truck and the subfloor of the house and started to pull.  We ripped one board off, when one of the volunteers who was sweeping the subfloor of the house next door stopped over to talk to us.  He said that they would be here again the next day and if we had something to do, they would be very happy to help us out.  What a relief it was when we asked them for help cleaning out the rest of the basement that they were willing to do it.  We explained that we wanted to pull the subfloor up ourelves to save money, and that we had to clean the basement out first.  We also explained how anything we piled on the curb the city would haul away.  I signed some paperwork and went home that night after dark.  We hadn't accomplished very much and the bitter cold was almost unbearable.  I was excited that I would be able to start looking at the subfloor again the next day, and very hopeful that some of the basement would be cleaned out.

I got off work the next day and ran by the house to see what was happening.  It was bitter cold that day, and so I figured that the volunteers would not have gotten very far, but I was hopeful that they had been able to do a little bit.  I was knocked off my feet when I arrived at the house.  The volunteer organization had not only cleaned the basement out, they had removed the paneling, pulled the subfloor and the deck off the back of the house.  Everything was piled next to the curb.  It was such a wonderful feeling of relief that we didn't have to worry about getting this done anymore.  I wish I would have written down the name of the volunteer organization because they did such a great job so quickly and saved us so much time and energy.  It was a great load off our minds during a very troubling time.  Here is a picture of the basement after the subfloor was removed.  Notice how much cleaner everything looks.

It felt so good to be making progress.  We were going to beat that Damn Tornado, and the cleaned out basement was the first step.  It felt really good that day to finally make a little bit of progress.