Blackwell Family Flood Relief

I woke up to that awful, piercing sound on my phone from the National Weather Service. For me, it’s not anything groundbreaking. During heavy tropical storms on Kauai these warnings were more like background noise. Completely normal. Nothing to worry about. Sometimes I’d be at work during heavy rainfall, and everyone’s phones would become a blaring symphony of terror, where tourists’ eyes would grow wide and they would look at us for reassurance--likely wondering why we have no sense of urgency or worry. “Happens all the time,” we’d say. Just get to the other side of the bridge. You’ll be fine.

When my phone went off once, twice, three times at one in the morning on Wednesday at my parent’s house—I was agitated. We’re in California. It’s fine, I thought. You’re overreacting, National Weather Service. This isn’t the 2018 flood. This isn’t the storm in 2020 that shook the whole house, that caused the hillside to fall in Hanalei. Stop waking me up. I’m trying to get some sleep. I start my new job tomorrow. I don’t have the bandwidth for this. Next I saw the flash. I counted the seconds, anticipating the thunderclap that follows- about five. The house shook from that biblical grumbling of Mother Nature. Although it felt familiar, I was shaken out of my groggy, sleeplessness and something felt wrong. I took deep breaths. I tried to settle myself.

And then I heard the yelling.

I jump out of bed, my parents are downstairs. Water is coming in, they say. At that time there was puddles, like the dishwasher was leaking. My Dad, like Moses trying to part the Red Seas, somehow trying to make a barrier of himself to the water as it seeped in. We have to stop it, he says. I run to the window and I see the water as it had enveloped my car, almost to the top of the mailbox, the front yard turning into a brown, debris-filled pool of water. My survival brain clicked on. I felt myself leave my body, as if the theme song from Requium for a Dream reached out to me and hummed in my ears. The eary violin making the hairs on my arms stand. I knew we had little time. I knew the water had no where to go, but inside the house. What are we supposed to do, I say on repeat. My Mom stands at the top of the staircase, frozen, calling the fire department.

I start the frenzy of saving anything I could. I grab the Christmas presents. I grab the shoes. I grab the photos. I grab anything and everything I can with any sort of sentimental value. The things that can’t be replaced. Where are the candles, I yell to my Mom, still frozen on the staircase with her phone at her ear, unable to multitask with my questions and the Fire Department on the other line. We need water. We are going to lose power. Where are the matches?? By now the puddles had grown to my calf. I’m pushing through the water, moving as quickly as I can. I scream for my Dad. Nothing. DAD. DAD. Dad. I only hear the water sloshing, moving, growing. I open the garage and I see him, with a shovel in his hand, now knee deep in water. He stands there stoic and helpless. I tell him to get inside and he does not move. Why, he asks. I know a few things about rushing water. I know too many things about rushing water. I’ve filled up a few gallons of water, the candles and matches are upstairs, anything else I wanted to save is now underwater. It now touches the bottom of my thigh. I think about my car.

My Mom is at the top of the stairs, grateful I’ve saved what I could. I go outside to stand next to my Dad. If anything happens, I know I could save him too. My surfboards were next to us. I could paddle to him, if needed. Yet I stood out in the rain with him, water brushing our thighs, my hair wet and stuck to my face, shivering but not cold. There was nothing else to do but watch. By now my car is completely submerged, the blinking headlights peeping out from underneath this catastrophic pool, where it had turns 180 degrees from the rushing water.

Our neighbors come out. We all stand there, dumbfounded. We smell gas. We get our neighbor to turn ours off.

I can’t believe this is happening, I say to myself. I can’t believe this is happening. When I left Kauai, when I boarded that plane for the last time as a resident, I practically shouted, No more floods! No more bridge closures! No more Natural Disasters!

Never say never.

Once the rain eased up and the water started to recede, it left as quickly as it came. And then we were left with the mud. And our new, nightmare of a reality we were beginning to digest.

As we have begun to pick up the pieces of the flood, unlucky news has turned to bad news, to even worse news, to news that does not go remotely in our favor. After the insurance adjuster came, it turns out we do not have flood insurance. Our 4 neighbors who were under water don’t, either. Why would we? We don’t live near a lake or a river. While the ocean is close, we aren’t in its merciless path. None of this is covered. None of it.

My parents are baby boomers. They are survivors. Work horses. Full of pride, less likely to ask for help. I hate asking for help too. If you know me, you know this. Yet our entire house needs to be gutted. We need to get out of the house—mold grows in 3 days. I can’t afford to lose the progress that I’ve made on my fragile health already poisoned with these mytoxins. All of our appliances broke. All of the electrical systems that were under water need rewiring. We need new floors. Furniture needs to be replaced.

And none of this will be covered.

We are so grateful for all the generous text messages, calls, messages. Many of you have asked how to help, and right now this is the only thing I can think of. To put our fragile egos aside, we need financial help. I’ve set up a GoFundMe for my family, for my parents. They have done so much for me as I’ve gone through a tough year, and now it’s my turn to help them. If you have the means to donate, I know they will be grateful, even if they can’t see it yet.

I know many people in Ventura County have similar circumstances, and my heart goes out to you as well. If there’s one thing I know about floods and Natural Disasters, it’s not forever. The water: it will recede eventually. We get our hands dirty. We clean up the mud. And we graciously ask for help.