"Goodbye, hardwood floors, I'll miss you most of all!"

That was my last post on Facebook before the lights went out.  Up until then, bizarre things had been going on in my first floor apartment on Park Avenue.

Water was bubbling up in the toilet in the half bath and brown gunk was coming up in the master bedroom bathtub.  The dishwasher had stopped in the middle of a cycle even though the power was still on.  And my dining room floor was inexplicably wet.  I flipped the chairs up onto the table, ran and shut off the dishwasher, and turned on all the lights.

That's when I noticed that my cats were sitting by the terrace door in a state of high alert, and water was rising on the terrace.  

I had been told to evacuate, but the thought of hauling them to a shelter and myself to Levittown High School seemed like overkill.  Plus, nothing happened near my building during Irene. 

I posted jovial notes on FB to my friends and family and ignored the good advice they gave me about hauling myself out of there.  Now both cats were giving me the side-eye and it wasn't looking good.

Not leaving probably wasn't very smart.  Yet I have no regrets about staying in spite of all that happened next.

Water began dripping out of the air conditioning / heating units in the bedroom and living room.  Towels were deployed, then lasagna pans.  Mini geysers in the dining room soon flooded the space.  I hauled books to higher ground and shoes off the floor.  Through it all the cats glared at me as if to say "How can you let this happen?"

Then there was an explosion, which I later realized was the steel fire door in the stairwell next to my apartment giving way.  The hallways were filling up with water and while my doors held, it was coming in through every available opening.  The power went out and I sloshed around lighting candles.   My laptop was now on battery power and my cell phone was useless, so I signed off with a promise to contact my loved ones as soon as possible.

I really never imagined the water getting as high as it did.  People abandoned their cars in front of my terrace and were rescued in boats.  The hall outside my apartment was full of oil and water and debris.  It reached to just below my knees in the apartment.   There was a strange smell of fish, oil, low tide... and sewage.  My longhaired cat had taken shelter in the laundry basket, which was now afloat.  I scooped her out and put her on the bed.  The other one was already there, his white paws dingy with mud.

I sat down and waited.  Almost as quickly as it came, the water receded.

And that's when the nightmare REALLY started.  If I had known that my condo board was going to embark on an odyssey of idiocy and corruption that Dickens would have had a field day with, aided and abetted by Long Beach Tammany Hall, I would have steeled myself for it.  

But I've learned a lot, and if you come back and read my future posts, so will you.  You'll learn about insurance, and condo boards and their managing agents, and The City Of Long Beach Building Department, and contractors both good and bad.  FEMA, too.  It's been a long journey and it's still not finished.  Have a look, and comments are welcome.