We did some cleaning up today, but there's a lot left to do. The upright piano was leaning on a piece of old stereo equipment, like a tape player, that had managed to stand on its end. We couldn't lift the piano, so we just tied a rope to it and pulled so it fell flat. At least it won't kill a cat this way. Lynn had a bag of old books on top of the piano, and the bag has handles. As the piano floated around during the flood the bag's handles hooked on something, so the bag was left hanging and the books are dry. The beer bottles I collect for homebrew are all covered inside and out with silt. I could clean them, or recycle them and accumulate more by buying beer. Hmm.

9:23 AM

Oh, heck. I'll put in a few more posts.


The water's only calf-deep now, stuff has floated all over. I went downstairs. The water line on the wall is over 4 ft (> 1.2 m) deep. Our phone is out. The pink beer is history, since the carboy holding it broke in half. The downstairs refrigerator (the one with the beer) is lying on it's front with the door open. There was a worthless piano downstairs that came with the house. It's now leaning precariously against something. There is silt covering almost everything. I think we'll just use a hose to rinse it off. The garage door floated up, and some things are lying in the driveway. I'll pick those up first, so we have somewhere to park.

10:00 PM

It's still outside, and we're supposed to get days of quiet weather, highs in the upper 70's to lower 80's. The water in the downstairs (and outside!) is still very high, but slowly dropping. There's a lot of clean-up work ahead, though a lot of stuff is ruined, so we can just toss it. It's not clear if my work is open tomorrow. In any case, unless something dramatic happens I think I'll stop posting here. Goodnight!

5:39 PM

Yea! The water level is definitely going down, though not much yet. It's windier now than it has been. As Lynn said, a tree fell across the stream, into a neighbor's yard. Odd that the forecast has the windspeed steadily decreasing, and it hasn't worked out that way.

3:29 PM

We're so grateful that we still have power and water. Not hot water, mind you. The water heater is at least partly submerged, and so we'll have to replace it. Along with the washer, dryer, and possibly the furnace.

There hasn't been much rain since the last entry, which is as the weather service predicted. It's pretty breezy and pleasantly cool. The township declared a state of emergency last night at midnight, but most people would not have heard of it.

Note the water above the switches. We're pretty sure that it has crested.

So this is likely the deepest it'll get:

The front of the house:

The last photo will mean something mainly to those who have been here.

12:07 PM

The water's a little deeper. In previous pictures down our stairwell, you can see a light switch plate on the wall. The water's at the bottom edge of that, now. It's actually nice outside, breezy and cool. The sun's trying to come out, though I think it won't succeed today.

10 AM

Lynn's worried that we'll have to evacuate, with the three cats, two rabbits, and a parakeet. It is her personality to think of what could happen and prepare for it. It's a constructive form of pessimism,  I suppose. I prefer to think that the water is cresting and will start down soon. Perhaps I'm in denial, but I think there's good reason to believe it. The local Assunpink creek (runs through Trenton) is cresting.