The Plot Thickens...

We return now for (hopefully) the conclusion to our soggy story.  It starts with another amazingly blessed chain of events.  Get this.

School was canceled today (that is not part of the blessed events...consequently, and contrary to your praises of patience and goodness, my fuse today was slightly shorter than yesterday.  School might have saved their skins a time or two today.)
This morning I called the water clean up company to see where I was on their list.  The receptionist was a tad snippy.  I understand that she has had a stressful last couple of days but is that any excuse to throw good customer service out in the flood waters? No, it is not.  Being irritated with her snippy attitude I decided to call our local fire department because a friend of mine had mentioned that option in passing last  night..  I am beyond grateful that she mentioned that...read on.
So after getting off the phone with Miss Snippity I called our little local Fire Station.  In less than ten minutes I had a truck in front of my house and three able bodied men setting up an industrial sized pump in my basement.  They were back in an hour to retrieve their pump and wish me a happy day....no charge I might add.  (I heart Firemen.) Did you hear that? No charge! because Firefighters are awesome like that.  After they had left I heard a knock on the door...it was one of the firemen back with a request to follow him.  There was a problem.  (cue tense music...)
I followed him to the side of the house to find the other firemen standing safely back from our electrical box dripping, big time dripping, with water.  They informed me that this was indeed NOT a good thing and "how quickly can you and your daughters leave the house?"  Considering we were all still in our pj's, not as quickly as he would have liked.  We were instructed to touch NOTHING, not even a light switch.  We threw clothes on (luckily I had already put on deodorant and jeans but had to throw the bra in my purse) and herded ourselves out the door and down the road.  I wish I had taken a picture of the commotion we left but I fear they already thought I was being too calm about the whole thing.  Truth is, I can't really comprehend what kind of danger we were in but the fact that we had been indeed using electricity all  morning had my adrenaline pumping pretty healthily by the time I got to my friend's house.  We left behind two fire trucks, a police car and a small gaggle of firemen on the driveway.  Sitting here tonight and recounting the story I have suddenly been flooded (excuse the corny description but that's literally how it happened) with emotion from the last two days.  Yes I have been calm and yes I have not worried.  But tonight I cannot help but be overwhelmed with all the countless "what ifs".  It could have been catastrophic.  I was letting my daughters play in the water for crying out loud!!  The water from the main box outside was a mere inches from the actual circuits and it was dripping down into the basement where our circuit breaker box is, located a mere 3 feet from an oil tank.  I feel incapable of expressing my gratitude.  I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for my friend for mentioning the fire department option, the snippy lady on the phone that irritated me enough to call someone else, the teenage volunteer firefighter with his Dad today (who saw the dripping water from the box as they were pulling away and asked his Dad if that was normal) and whatever angels have been protecting my family for the last 2 days.  I can't seem to properly process these feelings of appreciation - overcome with relief beyond what I could comprehend.  This afternoon when we were allowed to come back home a fire chief stopped by to explain everything to me.  He even showed me pictures and video that he had taken to show me exactly what the problem had been and how they fixed it and assured me that all was well now.  I wish I still had him in my kitchen...I would hug him and kiss his cheeks and tell him "Thank You" for being awake helping people for the last 40 hours.  The poor man was tired. 

I continue to feel extremely watched over.  So thank you whoever you are.  Thank you for the thoughts and the prayers and the love, my gosh the love.  Thank you to the friend that let us come hang out in her own mess of a flood today and fed us lunch, thank you to my other friend that has lent us her shopvac to get the last little bit of remaining water and thank you to the countless people that have called to check up on us today.
I know it doesn't seem like much of an ordeal but I wanted to write about it when I still feel the impact of what a big deal it could've been.

This shows where the water got to and how quickly their pump got it out.  Tonight I just have spots of standing water...it is almost all gone.

This was a lovely sight...hopefully that water was running more into my neighbor's yard and not so much back into our own.

This is the meter box after they fixed it.  They shut off all power, opened things up, drained water and then cut slices in the bottom of the tubing to let water drain as it came  up from the ground.