The Great Water Disaster

Friday morning the 12th, I woke up at about 1:00 hearing dripping. This is not unusual, because I can usually hear dripping from the overhang outside when it rains. It took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was INSIDE. I thought the storm had forced water into the chimney, so I'd have to get up and get something to put in the fireplace to catch the drips and call the management company in the morning. I turned on the light and saw the ceiling:

I scrambled to move my music bag (flute, recorders, whistles) and music stand from in front of the fireplace. Then I found I had to push the bed over. Followed by moving my nativity collection from the mantle. The dripping got worse, and I disassembled the bed while I phoned the management company's emergency number. Then I called Mom while moving the nightstand and lamp as the dripping spread. I put pots and bowls under the worst of the drips.


By the time Mom and Bill arrived, I was emptying bookshelves and dumping books in the small room. My apartment is 450 square feet, so you can imagine there isn't a lot of space to move anything to. Once the dripping seemed to stabilize, I packed the nativity sets back into the "Christmas Boxes" while Mom tried to organize piles so that we could at least move around a little.

The maintenance person showed up, and he and Bill went to go look where the problem was. The tenant on the second floor wasn't home, but it turned out that the water actually originated from the third floor, where one of the tenants was taking a shower. For TWO HOURS she'd been taking a shower! It turns out that they'd called Roto Rooter (or some similar company) to take care of a clogged drain instead of calling the management company. I've never had a problem with the management company coming when needed in a timely manner, so I don't know what the were thinking! The guy who came punched a hole in the drain, so as she showered.. and showered... and showered... the water drained into the ceiling of the second floor apartment, then poured through her floor and into my ceiling and down between the walls.


I also kept an eye on my clothes closet and the back hall. Good thing, because I saw water start to come through the closet, and Mom and I emptied it into the front common hall. Later I moved the contents of my closet to the back seat of my car.


I spent the next few days with my mother while they made repairs. They thought they'd be done Tuesday, but I wasn't able to move back into my apartment until Thursday the 18th. They had to replace the carpeting and treat and repaint the walls. In many ways, I was very lucky. If this had happened the week before while I was in California for a meeting, a lot my stuff would have sustained damaged. The only thing they will have to replace is my mattress, which I couldn't get far enough away to avoid being splashed.

I think the maintenance person was surprised at how calm I was--at least by the time he arrived I'd finished panicking. And that I wasn't flying off the handle at him. Sometimes a little respect and professional treatment goes a long way. It wasn't his fault, and he did get up at 1:30 in the morning to drive through a nasty rain storm to come and take care of the problem as much as he could. And he was back before 9:00 a.m. with other workers to start cleaning up and making repairs.

I still have to order the new mattress, the winter storms really messed up delivery schedules, so I said I'd call back after Christmas. I'll be at my brother's for the week, so it won't be a major problem. I have almost everything put away, and except for the lighter carpet, you can't really tell I had an indoor rainstorm.

A couple of interesting things appeared in the water stains. This one on the ceiling


and this weird one on the wall:


Once the new mattress is here, and the last of my stuff is put away, I'll ask Lois to come and do a house blessing.

Peace,
Jeff

In Nature's Way

In November a couple of years ago I attended a conference in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. The weather was a little cool, even for November, and cloudy. It even rained a couple of times. At the Sunday worship service for the conference, the local pastor who led the service started off his greetings to conference attendees by apologizing if the locals were joyful about the weather. They needed the rain, he said.

My immediate thought was, "I have no sympathy for people who move to the desert, plant grass, and then complain about the lack of rain." I'm having a similar reaction after watching news reports from the Florida coast as it was lashed by Hurricane Noel.

I grew up in a coastal community, so I know first hand what storms can do to beaches and other shoreline geography. I also understand the allure of shore front homes. However, if you are going to build on the shore and then complain about the natural effects of wind and water on the shoreline (both erosion and build-up), then you are not going to get a lot of sympathy from me. The same goes for those who decide to build in the mountains, destroy the hillside ecosystem, and then complain about the mudslides. And it even applies to those who build in the woods, refuse to let smaller, controlled fires burn as part of the forest's natural life cycle, and then complain about wildfires.

There are ways to live near the shore, on the hills and in the woods that are less disruptive to the ecosystem. There are even ways to build our homes in ways that lessen the impact of storms. I remember watching news reports a couple of years ago after a fairly severe hurricane passed through central Florida. It was interesting to note that the houses that survived with minimal damage were those built either before 1940 or after the new building codes were implemented in the wake of Hurricane Andrew.

We can never totally eliminate the results of natural "disasters." Sometimes we cannot avoid the destruction, no matter how carefully we plan and build. Nor do I want to belittle the losses of those who have endured the fires in California and Tropical Storm, now Hurricane, Noel. However, if you continue to disregard nature and build in places and ways where you know it is probable that your house will be destroyed, how many times do you honestly expect to be bailed out by insurance companies or the government?

Peace,
Jeffri

In The Path Of The Fires

Around 10:00 yesterday morning my friend Joe called me. It was a little early for him to be in his office, but his wife Trudy was on her way to a meeting in Seattle, and he had taken her to the airport even earlier. He wanted my boss' phone number for Trudy so she could get a hold of my boss if needed when they all arrived in Seattle. He also wanted my fax number so he could send me a "cut and paste" (literally, not in a word processor) document Trudy had been working on for us. Oh, and by the way, he and Trudy had to leave the house.

What is so startling about this simple statement was the context in which it was made, and Joe's saying it as if it was perfectly ordinary. Joe and Trudy live in San Marcos, just north of San Diego. I stayed with them for a long weekend after a meeting less than two weeks ago. Their neighborhood received evacuation orders early that morning. Joe told me that they'd woken up in the wee hours because they smelled smoke. They woke the neighbors next door, who have an infant child, and then proceeded to pack all their important papers, computer, clothing, and a few other things in the car before they left for the airport. The neighbors called Joe during the airport trip and said the mandatory evacuation notice had come, so he should not come home.

During lunch I looked at news reports online. Everyplace we had been during my visit was under fire watch, being evacuated, already evacuated, burning, or burned. I called Joe just before I left the office last evening. He was in the middle of packing a truck at the church where he and Trudy both work. Del Mar was threatened, and they were packing up the irreplaceable things. He told me he had a place to stay for the night, and he would call me later. This morning my boss called and passed along news from Trudy. They received notice that they could return home, but then another evacuation order went out. Joe had not even bothered to go home because the traffic was so bad.

It is very different watching and reading news of a disaster when people you know are involved--or places you have been. It makes it much more personal. On the train ride home last evening I found myself pondering my own preparedness for a disaster. What if I was given 30 minutes or less to get out of my home? What would I take? What do I consider important or irreplaceable? What could I realistically grab and load into my small car?

There are advantages to living in a small apartment. I do not have many places to stash things, so most of what I own is readily accessible. And with the recent purge, there is a lot less "stuff" to sort through if I had to leave. All of my important papers, files, and family records and pictures are in the three remaining plastic file drawers that sit by the back door of my apartment. My journals are in two archive boxes in the back closet--also close to the back door of my apartment. All of the clothes in my closet could be taken out to the car in two armloads, and those in my dresser could probably be stuffed in one or two of the small suitcases. My flute is usually out because I play it frequently. After that, it would be whatever else I had time to grab and fit in my car.

What I did realize is that I don't have a lot of my important information in one central place. Insurance policy numbers, group medical numbers, bank account numbers, emergency contact numbers, inventory of what is in my safe deposit box, etc. So today I stopped at a local Borders and bought a Moleskine Memo Pockets. I will be transcribing all that information onto index cards to go in the pockets, and it will stay with me.

Tomorrow I will try to call Joe and see what the latest news is. And I will probably again be amazed at his--and Trudy's--matter of fact, almost cheerful, demeanor in the face of the fires. In the meantime, I will pray for him and Trudy, and for all those in the path of the fires.

Peace,
Jeffri

"God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship"

So said a deckhand in Southampton to Mrs. Sylvia Caldwell when she asked if the Titanic really was unsinkable (quoted in Walter Lord's A Night To Remember). Yet six days later the great ship struck an iceberg and sank in the wee hours of April 15, 1912. The event was the news equivalent of the JFK assassination or 9/11 of the era. There were investigations, lawsuits, and a whole lot speculation. Many facts were not uncovered for years, and many may never be known.

From the moment she sank 95 years ago, the Titanic has been the subject of countless books (both fiction and non-fiction), sermons, films, television shows, songs, plays, editorial and political cartoons, a Broadway musical, and even a Nazi propaganda film. I first learned of the ship and her ill-fated voyage as a third grader, when I read Lord's book for a book report. Since then I have read almost every English language book written on the ship and her sinking. That does not even come close to giving me fanatic status in the world of Titanic buffs!

I have been resisting the temptation to use the Titanic as a metaphor for the current mess in the Anglican Communion. I know that people on both ends of the debate, and in the vast "middle," have different ideas of what or who is the iceberg, the ship, the captain, the passengers, the Carpathia, etc. I think I will leave well enough alone.

Instead, I will tell you a story about my first (and so far last) voyage on an ocean liner. The summer after I finished junior high school (which was 7th, 8th, and 9th grade at the time), my family took a cruise to Bermuda on the Statendam. We had two cabins near the bow of the ship, one for my parents and one for my brother and me. After a day and a half at sea, we docked in Hamilton early in the morning. I was startled out of my sleep by a loud scraping noise along the side of the ship. It took me a few groggy moments, as I stumbled around trying to find my life jacket, to realize that the noise had been the ship scraping the bumpers of the dock and not a hole being torn in the hull. Such was the power of the Titanic story on my 15-year-old mind!

Peace,
Jeffri