Chehalis Trip

Jeremy and I in our Mormon Helping Hands T-Shirts.

As us Washingtonians know, we encountered some major flooding in some parts of the state.  With the snow and then the rain a couple weeks ago, there was some out of control rivers.  The hardest hit was the area of Chehalis, WA.  Our ward and stake were contacted recently about going to help these victims and of course Jeremy and I willingly went.  We took the 1 1/2 hr drive out west to clean out mud, take out drywall and flooring and do whatever was needed to clean up the mess and help those in need.  It was a great experience and we are so happy that we were able to go.  We met some wonderful people who have lost so much, if not almost everything they own due to this.  They were so positive though, and realized all they had and the many blessing they have received, despite all the tragedy.  Here's some pictures of our trip.

 

This is one of the houses we helped clean.  The inside was bare, only studs.  They had to rip out everything!  You can see how high the water got by looking at the paint about a third of the way down on the house, which is darker.



This is the mud that the river brought into this front yard. 



Wendy, Me, and Heidi working hard in the garage to get out mud.  You can see on the brick behind us how high the water was there too.



The Chehalis River got so high it was covering this bridge and brought branches and logs with it that hasn't been cleaned off yet.

 

This is where a bridge is supposed to be.  Again, the river was so high, it covered the bridge and with this one, tore it down.



Here's the bridge from the previous picture.  It's laying in the river.