Evacuation (original date 4/9/2010)

As most of you know I live in RI and we have all been hit pretty hard with rain for the past month. We were doing well until last Tuesday March 30th. Our basement starting filling with water, I knew the main problem was the gutter but couldn't fix it in the storm. I worked very hard to get the water level down by myself. I would fill & dump the three times then run upstairs and check on the boys, run down and repeat as they would allow. Karissa helped when she could but it was hard with school & Jordyn. When it reached 6 inches Mike talked to his boss and got permission to come home. While he was driving home from NJ Karissa & her boyfriend helped me try to keep up with the water coming in. It really felt like it was a losing battle. Mike got home around 9pm and I had to stop because I could barely walk at that point. Mike stayed up until 2:30am, the water had gotten down to 2 inches. By 7am it was back up to 5 inches but I let Mike sleep until 8:30 as I knew he was tired. A few times during the day I went down to check on the river and bridge. I don't know why I was concerned as there has never been a problem  with us getting flooded from the river. Well about three o'clock that afternoon I went down and an officer told me to "get on the bus or get out of the area".  Then he explained that we were being evacuated as they were afraid the bridge would collapse in the river. Later we found out that one of the mills had lost a corner into the river.
        I ran back to the house and let neighbors know on the  way. Now it can be hard to evacuate with children but children Autism is a really hard. You are uprooting them from their home, not knowing when you can return, you are nervous as you don't know what is going on so you don't have answers for them and if you forget their favorite toy you are screwed.  Well I quickly came up with a plan and we started to pack. We made sure we had weighted blankets, favorite toys & favorite snacks. I hoped that if I had their favorites around it would ease things for them. We went to my best friends Denise's hous for the night and all adults had our eyes glued to the internet & TV to keep up with the status of the bridge. We even went to the bridge area at times, this was hard to do because so many people treated the danger of the bridge falling like a freak show. Making comments about when it would fall and laughing about it. This was very upsettign to me as my life was in our house and all I wanted to do was scream at said people.
         At Denise's house the boys did well and they were having fun although it was not so fun for all the adults. We had to watch every move the boys made as her house was not child proof. I made Philly Cheesesteak pizza for all and while I was cooking I rearranged her kitchen cabinets as my nervousness & OCD took over. It did take the boys a while to fall asleep but they did sleep thru the night. When they woke up the showed in many ways that they had had enough & the meltdowns began. I went down to the bridge area a few times and could not get any answers from anyone. I did get a number to call but all they would say was "we are at the will of Mother Nature". I tried to explain that my boys had Autism and I needed to get things back to normal as best as possible. Well we decided to book a hotel room for the night & got one that allowed dogs so we could take Katenna as the boys could not spend another night without her.
          We got settled into the hotel room, it took the little ones almost two to fall asleep for their naps. Once we got settled in we found out that we could return to our home but we chose to stay at the hotel for the night as there was no heat or hot water at the house.  We went to dinner after their naps then took them swimming. The swimming really helped them relax and work out their energy. We made the best of a bad situation. We returned home on Friday, most of the water had pumped out of the basement and the heat was working.  we got the boys settled back into the house and got them back on track with the schedules.
          I was very impressed with the boys throughout the week, they had alot thrown at them and they handled it well for the most part. I have learned that I should have a plan in place in case we were to be evacuated again. I will be setting up a plan book and a evacuation bag soon. I do believe that the boys can handle almost anything as long as I plan it properly.