hurricane ike....

as the weekend neared and we were closely watching all of the hurricane coverage of ike (trying to map out our plan of games-to-be-played) we were much anticipating all of our kids games being cancelled due to rain from ike. we were delightfully surprised when the weather forcasters were wrong friday evening and we got to enjoy a beautiful night at ballwin ballpark watching bradley play baseball. we awoke on saturday morning early, yet again, surprised that lainie would be able to play in her 9 a.m. soccer game and as the day progressed we waited for the skies to open up...but they didn't and we had another beautiful evening at ballwin ballpark where the A's had a fantastic game and continued their winning streak beating the team they played 15-8...bradley played first base and had a great game! we layed our heads on our pillows and the last forcast of the evening said we would be getting some heavy rain in the morning and it would all move out by noon-with the heaviest to the north and west of st. louis. i was awakened this morning early b y chris letting me know we had water and mud trickling into our basement playroom and that he had to get out the door for praise team practice before church...as bradley and i picked everything up off of the floor i found myself complaining a bit about what a mess we would have to clean up later...bradley gently reminded me that we are blessed beyond belief compared to the people who have endured the hurricane full strength and have water completely filling their homes-our little trickle that was heading to the drain in the floor was nothing....bradley and i got ready for church and headed out the door only to be met by our neighbor who had already tried to get to church-no such luck-and told us that manchester rd was shut down in both directions by our house-our only chance out was the street behind ours and we could take that the back way by the kids school and out to brentwood blvd......bradley and i pulled out onto manchester and could not believe our eyes...a car was sitting completely covered in water. i immediately called chris as the water was creeping nearer to our street and told him he would have to leave church immediately or he would not be able to get home. i then drove to church and met chris (worried that his volvo could not get through the fast furious river forming on manchester). it took us 6 minutes to get from church to home and in that time manchester flooded at the street behind ours and we just got through and up went the barrackades. we went in, changed clothes and went to survey the flood..never since we have lived in brentwood have we ever seen anything like this...we have talked to neighbors who said it was not even this bad in the flood of 93. they had to bring in john boats and rescue families from apartments down manchester from us-1 man jumped out of a 2nd story apartment (he thought he smelled gas) and had to be rescued as he was being carried away in the current. an eighty year old man had to be rescued from this car 2 blocks from our house-right near the intersection of hanley rd and manchester.

so, as we walked around in disbelief, i couldn't help but pray for mot only these owners of cars and businesses around us that were totally destroyed by water, mud and foating debris (such as trash dumpsters and trees), but also couldn't imagine if this is what we endured as remnants of ike-what have the people on the coast endured...
notice the mums and plants floating down manchester away from the nursery by our house. the 24 hour access picture is a 24 hour fitness center-completely under water..


the rain finally ended around 11:00 this morning and the waters finally went down around 1:00 this afternoon...the streets are filled with mud and debris and to this very minute people are cleaning out their businesses down the street from us...it is going to take a very long time to clean all of this up. we took a few pictures around town when we got out to go and pick lainie and tristan up from my moms house. for all of you who are familiar with the area of manchester rd where the trainwreck is..there is a lumber business there and pallets of lumber floated down manchester and behind businesses and landed themselves in brentwood park...ALL OVER the place...on the railroad track that runs through there, on the bleachers where we have sat and watched bradley play ball for years-the field he played on last year is still completely a lake, the steps we walk up to the fields are completely washed out and i felt a little guilty for taking pictures as i turned and saw a guy taking trash cans full of water out of his car-it was completely filled with mud and water-totally destroyed....the clean up begins.....


the car that was totally submerged...when the waters went down...