Washed Away

I have been a little lax in posting. There is a very good reason for this - I just haven't had any good news to share. As my last post stated, we've found the land we want. It's within our price range. However, in trying to take advantage of a low-interest SBA Disaster Loan, we have been waiting on the SBA to decide how exactly they want to help us. Back in Iowa, we were pre-approved for a certain amount based on our damage assessment. Unfortunately, with selling the house and relocating, they cannot seem to decide how or if they can help us with our land.

So, we've spent the last two months dealing with calls from the SBA a few times every week with them changing their tune, either on what they need from us in terms of documentation, real estate agreements, estimates to run services to the property, etc, or lately, how much they can give us and what we are required to come up with. Lately, they call every few days and give us different numbers of what they can give us and what we have to show we can get in terms of a loan to pay for the rest.  I believe it's a safe assessment to say that we are more stressed now than we have been since the flood. Knowing what we want, but having to sit and wait, and them getting our hopes up and then those hopes coming crashing down the next day have taken their toll. My credit is 814, and I was pre-approved for a mortgage 3 times the amount we are trying to get for the land, but still we wait.

So, we are still here. We are still waiting, and hoping, and wishing the process would hurry up so we can start to rebuild our lives again.

Wish I had more positive news to post, but that's a status update for us!

that we've found our property!

We went back to the land on Saturday and basically walked most of it. Luckily the weather was warm, in the 60s- we beat the cold front coming in from the North. 3 hours later and it would have been a chilly walk!

There is a clearing in the middle of the property. We walked from the clearing back to the creek. The picture to the right shows the creek - the land ends right where the two creeks intersect.

The creek itself is pretty shallow - never more than knee high, and usually only a few inches of water. You go up quite a ways to the clearing where we'd put the house - something we are very mindful of.

The price is right, and we are going to make an offer as soon as we finalize some financing. We have a hard time swallowing that in four years we could have paid for the land with our equity, but have accepted that that was not meant to be. Still, it's a bit of an unknown, as we face buying land and building a house in this economy.

So, we are back to waiting. We hope to make an offer next week.

You can see more photos at:

http://flickr.com/photos/27725807

X was Jango Fett for Halloween. We went to Hendersonville for their downtown trick or treat, and then hit some houses. Here is Jango getting treats from Princess Leia and R2!

After a 13 hour drive from Iowa City back home to Mill Spring, NC, we
spent an exhausting weekend land shopping. My negative title does not
reflect the good pieces of land that we looked at; instead, just the
fact that it was exhausting! We spent 4 hours with a realtor in the
Shelby/Rutherfordton area Saturday, and 6 hours with a realtor in the
Morganton area (and only saw 6 properties within those 6 hours!) We
were wiped at the end of each day.



The good news is, we found a few pieces of land that we could see
ourselves with. Our favorite was the first we saw on Saturday. While it
does need quite a bit of clearing - it is quite overgrown with thick
brush - the quality of life aspects once we had the house built would be
fantastic. It's a 10 acre tract with an option to purchase an additional
4 acres, and is just barely within our price range. We would go for the
additional 4 acres as the current road that leads to the clearing is
partially on that 4 acres, and we really like the orientation of the
approach.



We are going back next Saturday to walk to the back of the property.
There is a creek back there that would be good for kayaking that we want
to check out.



There were a few others that were around the same price (perhaps a
little more per acre in the long run) that didn't require as much
clearing, but were not as ideal in terms of what we were looking for.
They are still on our options list, but we are focusing on this first
one first, and depending on what we find Saturday we will continue our
decision-making process.



The weekend's events did put a bit of hope in us. For so long, we've
been in a rut trying to get to where we could move forward. Now that we
can see a future, and that what we want is possible, we see the
beginnings of a little light at the end of the tunnel.



Sam & Zach

After a brief stop near Memphis, we have made it to the campground in
Mill Spring, NC (about 20 miles southeast of Asheville.) It hasn't been
a fun trip. We've all been sick and sleeping has been fitful, but we
arrived safely yesterday afternoon and are starting to settle in. We
have three things to take care of today; first, my Verizon usb internet
card has very poor reception. I'm going to try and find a Verizon store
and see what they recommend for a booster, if there is such a thing.
Second, we couldn't get the satellite dish to find the satellite. Zach
is going to talk to the guy who runs the place and see if he has any
suggestion. There are a few other satellite dishes around, working
successfully, I would think. Third, we have to find a place to
trick-or-treat tonight!



The campground is nestled in a valley, which is part of the problem with
the reception. We may have to find another campground if the internet
reception doesn't work...I have to have the internet to work.



I'll post more later. Xander had a great time taking pictures of the
fall foliage in the mountains while we were coming in, which were pretty
much at their peak. I'll post some later!

The countdown has begun. We've decided on our departure date. We will
officially be heading out of Iowa on October 25th. We are going a bit
out of our way to visit one of my clients in Memphis to do two days of
internet strategy planning, then heading east to Asheville.



The humorous part is that I will be flying back to Iowa the next week
for four days of work with my Iowa City client. I haven't decided yet if
I will drive down separately following the camper, or, if I will pick up
the car when I come back in November and drive it back to Asheville. I
will also be back in Iowa for a few days a few weeks later and for a few
days in December already. Odd how it worked out like that!



We have most of the rest of our stuff in my mom's garage, and took the
boat out on its last trip this past weekend. It is now winterized and
stored as well. We'll move the plants over to Zach's mom's house in a
week or two, do some final pickup around the house, and be ready to go.



The house sale seems to be getting finalized, but we may decide to hold
out a little longer for the slim chance of a buyout. If we decide to go
forward with the sale, we'll close before we leave.



This month will go by before we know it. Between two weddings, the end
of X's swimming lessons, and making sure I have things like X's
Christmas stocking with us, it will absolutely fly by. We are more than
ready to go, and ready to start planning the next stage in our life. It
has been too long in coming, and while we approach it carefully and with
a bit of trepidation - it will not be easy - we are more than ready to
go and hopefully leave this flood behind us.

I missed last week, so I will attempt to catch up here. As usual, things are moving at breakneck speed and slow as molasses all at once. Here's a recap:

• There has been more activity on the weekends of people rebuilding. We think this has to do with the upcoming winter, as well as people giving up on their chances for a buyout. It's strange riding through the streets - some streets has a few houses with activity, some streets have none, and some streets that are almost certainly going to be part of the proposed buyouts have people rebuilding. One house in particular, on a street very near the river, had a house where they were putting a new roof on. We found that a little strange (perhaps even not so smart?) but to each their own.




• The governor announced a new JumpStart program, in which each affected homeowner is eligible for up to $50,000 towards a down payment for a new house or repairs to their flooded home, and up to $10,000 towards the purchase of energy efficient appliances. While this got most of my neighbors very excited, we are still waiting for the fine print. Because we are moving out of state, we are very doubtful these programs will help us. While the governor promised that this money would be in homeowners hands by the first week of October, we found out this week that Cedar Rapids is doling out the money in this area. They have $8 million to assist homeowners, but they don't have enough manpower to administer the application process. So, they have to first find a firm that can take care of the application process, so they are not going to be taking applications until mid-October. Sounds like a cluster, right? To make it even more of a downer, while $8 million sounds like a lot, when you look at all the damaged homes in Cedar Rapids it really hardly makes a dent. If they split it evenly that adds up to about $1,400 per home; if they split it by need some will end up with a decent chunk but most will end up with little to nothing. JumpStart my a$$.


• The purchase of our house is still in process. We get a call from the buyer once or twice a week telling us his financing is almost through. While we were prepared to be accomodating before, our patience is running thin. As we make our final departure plans, we are less likely to leave our property and move somewhere else in the city until we make our final departure--they will just have to wait until we are ready to leave.

The buyer also stopped by this week to do some measuring...something we were surprised they hadn't done earlier. I would think that if you are buying a house with extensive renovations needed, that before you purchased you would have taken measurements and written out material lists to get an estimate of how much it would take to complete. But, I'm not them, so I am not saying anything. Apparently their plan is to insulate and finish the loft in the garage first, and live in that while they fix the house. There are a few small problems with that. First, right now their is only a ladder to the loft. Stairs will need to be built. Second, there is no sewer run to the garage, no gas line for a furnace, and while their is electric run to the garage structure itself, it would need to be run to outlets. Plus, the electric right now to the property goes to a temporary electric pole that is not tied in to the electric going to the garage which is inoperational because of the flood, and, to top it off, we are taking that temporary electric pole with us (that's $600 we spent on that in July!) it'll work great once we find our land.

We've come to the realization that we don't want to live next door for any amount of time and watch them on our property, in our house. Sure, we have an oversized emotional attachment to our house because of the extensive work we did to the entire thing. But, as they tell us their plans, we have come to understand that they are not in this for quality, they are in it for speed. Our house deserves better, but really, it's not our house anymore - it's the tombstone of our house. But still, we can't sit and watch them do shoddy work to the house that Zach built. So, when they finally get around to the point that we need close on the house, we will be putting the date that we will be leaving Iowa, not a day before.

• We are debating on the actual departure date. We are really ready to leave now; but, we want to keep X in his school for as long as possible and our departure has to move around the weeks I am not scheduled to travel. So, that leaves us the option of leaving the week of October 12th or the week of November 8th. This week, another option came up. I have a client in Memphis that I am visiting on October 28th and 29th. If we take the camper instead of me flying, there are a few benefits. While it does add about 3 hours to our trip, I would be able to submit mileage. Our truck doesn't get good mileage anyways, and pulling a camper is not going to help. So, the mileage reimbursement will actually pay for almost all of our trip. Then, I come back to Iowa the following week to meet with my Iowa client, and I would then drive my car back to NC.The funny thing is, it looks like I will be spending November and December going back and forth from NC to Iowa. I would have loved living in Iowa during this because I could just have driven to my client and stayed home, but, oh well.
  So, we hope to make our final decision this weekend on our departure date. I should be able to share by the end of the week and from there, we will be planning a very busy of October full of weddings, visiting family before we leave, and moving the rest of our belongings to my mom's house.

Well, that's about it. I am heading for Atlanta next week, and will try and post again next weekend!

This week I was in Canada (eh!) for most of the week. After nearly forgetting my passport at home, I made it to the airport in time and went to a place where fall is in the air - Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I stayed in Winnipeg but actually visited my client each day which was about a 30 minute drive south. It was very interesting to see the flood control measures that Winnipeg has in place.

Winnipeg sits at the convergence of two rivers - the Red River, and the Assiboine River. As such, Winnipeg had a major flood in 1950 that wiped out many of the bridges in the city and much of the downtown. This prompted the Red River Floodway to be developed, which runs much of the floodwater around the city. The Red River Flood of 1997 which destroyed much of Grand Forks, ND (which is the city that Cedar Rapids has visited to see how they recovered from their flood 11 years ago) tested the Red River Floodway in Winnipeg (the Red River flows north) and water was apparently within 1 ft of going over. Because of this, they are now nearing the end of a project to expand the floodway to control greater floods in the future.

Winnipeg is a beautiful town, with large walking areas around the river and bridges and lots of greenery planted on the bridges. While it would be great to see this sort of area in Cedar Rapids, this sort of attention will come at the cost of the people who lost their homes, their lives as they knew it. We may come back one day and find a small version of Winnipeg in our hometown, but I truly hope that the city council decides to take care of the affected residence first--even if we are excluding ourselves from this help because of our departure from the city, and the state.

Another week has come and gone, and we are one week closer to our departure from Iowa. I was in Charleston at the main office this week for some training and catching up with friends and colleagues, but as usual, life went on without me back home.  ( Some notable items behind the cut: )

Interesting article in the Gazette and KGAN today:
http://gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080908/NEWS/709089942/1006/NEWS
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/28030674.html (The KGAN article is a bit more humorous.)

This really cleared up the reason behind a sign right up the street from me. We went on a bike ride Sunday afternoon and saw a sign that said,
"My New Shitter!" with a box underneath it. A little strange, we thought, but didn't think too much about it.

Apparently, as the article states, FEMA has removed the portable toilets, commonly known as "port-o-pottys) that were in the area.

This does leave people in a quandary. For those who are living in pop-up campers without restroom facilities or working on their house during the day, the port-a-potty's may be their only bet. In KGAN's article, a quote from Roger Nielsen states, "I have bodily functions that I gotta do, and I don't got a toilet." While the grammar isn't the best, the point is clear, and a little communication and advance planning between FEMA and the City of Cedar Rapids would have been welcome.

Personally, although we have a full bathroom hooked up to the
sewer system in the camper, we try to use the toilet in the house whenever possible. But that's only possible because when we were tearing out the house, we left the toilet. Cleaned it, but left it intact, for
the very reason that I am not fond of port-a-potty's.

These are the types of things that flood-affected individuals have to deal with.

Sorry about the TMI.

I seem to have a new occupational hazard. Traveling for work is
something that is a standard part of my life. I've been on the road in
my current position for over a year now, and traveled frequently in
previous positions as well. This is something our family is accustomed
to; however, since the flood, there seems to be a sense of foreboding in
the air on the afternoons before I leave. Zach and I just can't shake
the feeling that something is going to go wrong while I'm gone.

While I was technically back in time for our Armageddon moment and the
rush of water in the flood, it was not by much. I got home at 11:00 P.M.
that night, got 6 hours of sleep and we had vacated the house by 8:00
the next morning.

I am sure that this too will fade, but I really thought that it would
have faded already.

Just another aftereffect of the flood; the loss of a sense of security
of the normalcy of everyday life.

Click Here to View More Photos

We’d like to extend our immense gratitude to all of the friends, family, and colleagues that have helped in innumerable ways over the past two months as we’ve dealt with the Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008, the loss of our home and belongings, and the aftereffects that are just now coming to bear.

On Wednesday, June 11th, our neighborhood was under a voluntary evacuation order to vacate our home because of expected historic flooding from the Cedar River. The expected crest of the river was 24.5 feet at that time, about 4 ft above the record set in 1929 and 5 feet above the 1993 flood that we all remember so well. Sam left a client in Atlanta early to come home and help monitor the basement, and arrived home at 11:00 pm. At 6 a.m. we were awakened by a thunderstorm as well as the sump pump running in the basement. 14 minutes later, the power was cut to the neighborhood, rendering the sump pump useless. We spent about 40 minutes bailing and waiting for family to bring a generator over before coming to the realization that the basement was a lost cause. We spent a frantic hour in a controlled panic packing, loaded the dogs and cat up in the Jeep and went to my moms house. (Thankfully X had spent the night with his grandma, and did not witness the chaos of that morning.) Zach returned about 20 minutes later and water had swamped the alley and the street and was starting to pool around the house.

We made an unauthorized return visit to the house that afternoon around 1:00 PM to retrieve the bearded dragons. We'd left them as there was just no room in the Jeep, and we knew that X would be heartbroken if we lost them. To get to the house, we had to wade through chest-high water in the street. After a brief stop at the boat to get life jackets and the inflatable tube, we entered the house to find the carpet floating in 6-8 inches of water in the first floor. We got the lizards, a Nintendo DS, and a few of Xander’s papers from school and waded back to our friend’s house 2 blocks away. We ran into a few of our neighbors at the edge of the water, who were anxious to hear what conditions were like at our house. Needless to say they were not thrilled to hear about the water in our first floor – their house was ½ block closer to the river than we were.
 

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