The drawback of living in a ground level apartment when a monsoon hits

This weekend Chicago suffered a mini-monsoon.  I was up late on Friday night/Saturday morning and had been reading through facebook that everyone was suffering with major flooding and power outages.  At 3am I commented that I was so lucky that nothing like that had ever happened to me.  I had no water in my place, so I went to bed.

Dum dum dum dum daaaaaaaaa......

Flash forward to 9:30am when I woke up screaming as I placed my feet onto the wet floor.

OH MY GOD!!!!!

I went into a serious panic as I'm trying to figure out how much water is in my house and how to keep my cat from coming onto the wet areas. I was frantic.  I couldn't even begin to prioritize what to look for/check on first.

After 20 minutes of crying and cursing over the inch of water in the majority my apartment (not the whole apartment), I started to worry that the water would continue rising and that both Charlie and I would be electrocuted in my house.  So I ran around the house and unplugged everything!  I also called my mom.....mom's always make you feel better.

Mom ordered me to bring Charlie to her house and to pick her up.  She was going to come and help me clean up.  Mom to the rescue!

By the time we made it back to my apartment with a dehumidifier, clorox, wet vacuum and old towels, most of the water had retreated.  My cousin and her twin 10 year olds also showed up ready to do what they could.  It was incredibly touching.  As I looked around and watched people sucking up water with the vacuum, walking around drying off furniture, etc....I realized how lucky I was.

Not only did I suffer minimal damage, but I got to see a glowing example of the incredible family I was born into.They are the best.

Thank you to everyone!

I'm still drying up the dampness in my house and I have a ton of stuff to wash.  Here's to a busy tomorrow!