You Know What Happens When it Rains?

Well do you? I do. When it rains, Paul gathers up about 85% of our non-furniture belongings and moves them out of our apartment because rain makes the Roanoke River rise like CRAZY and nearly flood our apartment. Here's the story...

I went to sleep to the sound of rain and the motor of the water pump outside my window. I woke up at 6:30 for my first day at work to more rain and just as much water pump motor. Since my car was in the shop so that someone could figure out why it's burning oil, Paul drove me to work, passing at least three man hole covers that had popped out of the ground because of too much rain. When I got to work I filled out paperwork for HR and listened to people welcome us. Meanwhile, 20 minutes away in Salem, Paul's breakfast was being interrupted by the fire department telling him that there is a voluntary evacuation going on because the river could likely go over the burm and flood our apartment complex. That's when Paul started gathering and calling his mom and best friend so we could pack their cars with stuff. I soon got a text message saying that we were being evacuated, but not to worry because he was taking care of it. So of course, I spent the next 6.5 hours worried that all of our stuff would be destroyed just 12 days after having moved in.

In the end, the river didn't flood. It crested probably less than a foot away from the top of the burm and our things remained untouched. But they shut the water off for the night and we had to stay at Paul's parents that night.

After that day, it wasn't the moving stuff that annoyed me the most, it was the fact that the property manager out and out lied to us about the flood history. We were told that it hadn't flooded at all in 10 years and that the second floor had NEVER flooded. The reality of the situation is that it flooded in 2004 (there's news footage to proove it) and that the fire department has had to rescue people off the third floor before. So to say that it hasn't flooded in the past 10 years and that the second floor has never flooded in the history of the complex, is a complete lie.

On the bright side, the job is going well. We've done mostly HR stuff for the past couple of days, but we started reading training materials yesterday. There were 30 of us starting at the same time, which is a lot, but I like starting in a big group. We're not in the building that we'll permanently be in yet, but we should be by December 14 (?). I think the best part of it all is that we get free parking because of the building we'll be in. I'm all sorts of pumped. It will be nice to not have to worry about paying for parking like I did at the VA.