Monday, December 10, 2018
The rain continued all night and was still coming down this morning. Water is everywhere. The river is moving swiftly and is out of its banks in the downtown area. Crossing the Lumber River on I-95 the river is way outside it’s banks and getting fairly close to I 95 again. Right now they say the river will continue to rise until tomorrow evening and then begin to fall. There are no roads that we need to travel affected by the water but there are some roads that are impassable.
Mary Ann shared devotion with us today using “Meeting God In The Ruins”, a devotional book for disaster volunteers. She offered the team encouragement to continue their good works/efforts assuring us that what we do does matter. It does make a difference in peoples lives in many small and large ways. Thanks, Mary Ann. We are down to crunch time now and we keep telling ourselves that we just need to get out of the way and let God accomplish what needs to be accomplished in the next three days.
Today we added a new house that Jeff wanted us to finish up before we leave if at all possible. Max, Cindy and Gary went there to paint the living room ceiling, repairing drywall in the bathroom, caulking the tub and then painting the bathroom. Today they completed the living room and repaired the drywall in the bathroom. It should be ready for sanding tomorrow, then primer to cover the water damage and then paint.
Mary Ann and Bruce went out to Mary and Jim’s house. There they completed the caulking and painting. Tomorrow the transition strip will need to be installed and one area of water damage to be painted. The debris we have been piling in the backyard also must be removed.
That left Anne, Dave and Nancy to start at Jackie’s with Carol and Phillip starting by painting the wood trim on the pump house roof for Mary and Jim’s house. They then joined us at Jackie’s before first break. At Jackie’s we worked on general cleaning, installing transition strips, installing mirrors and bathroom accessories, caulking, and painting some newly installed trim. We are also having to work very hard to remove masking tape that was placed on the floor by someone when covering the floor with heavy paper for protection. It has been down quite some time now and does not want to come off the floor. Painters tape would have been a better choice. Much easier to remove. We will have several more hours of work to do removing tape.
Gene joined Max’s group for lunch and then took Gary to help him deliver and install the pump house roof at Mary and Jim’s. Mary Ann said they were so pleased. They were going to wait for it to quit raining and dry up a little before they walked out to check it out up close.
The rain had finally stopped by late this afternoon. It is cold and we decided to stay in for a quiet night at home. Another good day. It’s now 8:00pm, 34 degrees, and it is sleeting. Time to head south!