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Transcript |
MORRISON: Well, the next morning, um, we tried to go to our house. We could not get in to our house till Wednesday. That was Sunday, so Wednesday’s when we finally got in, when the water receded, that we could get in. We had mud, about three inches thick. You know, Monday, Tuesday, we were--um, I was, my husband was helping, and I was helping some, with my sister and my niece’s house gutting out, doing what we needed to do. And we’d drive by, you know, just to see if we could get to our house, and we couldn’t get--so we’d go back and do that.
And then I was also, you know I had the two teenagers, I had them at friends’ houses at that time, and I’m just trying to, um, you know, I thought, ‘I’ve gotta get some kind of home for them,’ you know, ‘we don’t have a home.’ So, my grandfather had died like a year ago, or before that, and we had not sold his condo; it was an old folks’ home, like a retirement center, but they were houses, so we were able to stay there. And, the amazing thing was--you know, Monday, that, my Mom says, “ you can live there, till you figure out what to do”-- and so Monday, we had nothing in the condo, and by Tuesday night-- I mean, I had left the doors open; my friends, you know, people that I know, were calling people, saying “ what do you need?” and I was like, ‘ we need beds, we need--,’ you know. And by--we had (clapping as she mentions each item) clothes, beds, um, just stuff (laughing) was just being dropped off--by Tuesday night, it was filled with what we needed. So it was pretty amazing, that that quickly, people just jumped to, and, um, helped us to get back on our feet. And it was just, it was just a strange feeling, not to have anything, you know? (laughs) That was, um (voice cracking with emotion), and you know, for my kids, it was the um-- (pauses)--I worked really hard (voice still layered with emotion)--kind of kept them from seeing the house till that Thursday, and finally said, ‘they need to see it, you know, after--’
‘Cause we wanted to go in first, and see if there was anything we could save. We went Wednesday. We had our gloves, our masks. And the mud was so thick, you couldn’t, um, it was so hard to walk through there--it was so, I mean, it was like three inches or more of just-- It was just so weird: my neighbors didn’t have the mud, but we were just the settling point. And it was all around the house, and the driveway. And there was a neighbor with--some kind of tractor thing, and he, he scraped our driveway for us, so we could at least walk in the driveway. And then we shoveled our, our sidewalk up to, to get into the house. And the ceiling fell in. Um, you know, we just, it was like--it was like a bomb went off in my house. And I have pictures took, ‘cause you can’t even--even the pictures don’t even do it justice, but um-- It was, it was unbelievable: things were in other rooms, my refrigerator was knocked over--
But I do have--and tell me if I’m rambling on—
GIBBONS: (laughs)
MORRISON: --I’m just trying to tell you what I’m remembering (laughing). One of the neat things about it, I had left my, um, wedding rings, these rings that are on my hands, I had left ‘em on an angel ring holder, and it was up on the windowsill--I had forgotten to get ‘em--and I thought, ‘oh, they’re gone,’ you know. So we had some friends over there, and her husband--the refrigerator had fallen over, and was blocking the kitchen, I mean, you just couldn’t walk anywhere, it’s just, you can’t even fathom--and so he says, “well, where would your rings be?” And I said, ‘well, they’d be on that windowsill,’ and at the moment, there was just a plastic dog bowl that was--I’ve got a picture of that--just sitting there. And he crawls over there, and he pulls down the dog bowl, and my rings were still sitting there, on the ring holder!
GIBBONS: Wow!
MORRISON: Is that not amazing?! I mean, a refrigerator’s knocked over, my furniture’s all over the place--you know? It’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ |
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