It's hard to find anything to smile about when the front yard and neighborhood streets are under water. But Loyd and Karen Patterson have managed to find the humor in what has happened to their home.
“Mother Nature can kind of get ticked off,” Loyd says.
It’s not quite the home they left. The couch is soggy, the hardwood floors are in pieces and some of the water that caused the damage is still left behind.
“I’ve cried quite a bit,” Karen Patterson said. “It's been a lot harder than I thought. When you see it on TV you feel so bad for so many people. Then, all of a sudden it happens to you and now you really know what it's like to be homeless.”
The Pattersons thought they were prepared.
“This is my kitchen table that I really loved,” Karen Patterson says. “I said hurry up and get bricks and let's put the bricks around it. So we did, but the water rose past it. So I didn't save the kitchen table either.”
Now their house is proof they underestimated the storm.
Karen Patterson said she only expected her home to flood "a couple of inches" "at the worst."
“Really that was what I was expecting. I was not expecting to walk in the house like this.”
But not all is lost. The Patterson’s still have their memories, a few clean clothes, and the kind of Crocs they don’t mind seeing in the water.
“Crocs do float,” the Pattersons joke. “They do float.”
And while laughter won’t help them recover what they’ve lost, it helps these two keep things in perspective.
“We are actually very lucky,” Karen Patterson says. “It doesn't look like it right now but we are very very lucky. Very lucky right now.
Luckily the Pattersons had flood insurance. They say they’ve talked with many people in the neighborhood who didn’t. They plan to stay with family while they recover.
