Surreal

It is really weird for me to see footage of my hometown underwater...

Look, they're evacuating the hospital I was born in!

Hey, the hotel where our wedding reception was held, its surrounded by water!

I've been to that lake! And the levee is breaking!

It's a scary thing. My parents didn't get flooded out of their home, but the water was creeping towards their front door.

My sister and her family were evacuated out of their home in the middle of the night and had to sleep at the township fire station. Thankfully, the water didn't get in.

My sister's in-laws, however, weren't so lucking. Some had to be removed by boat.

One uncle had a indoor swimming pool in his basement.

I have a cousin whose home was covered to the tip of his roof and then shifted off its foundation by the rushing waters.

Another cousin has lost a lot of inventory from his business.

What is most amazing - call it fate, call it coincidence, but it's damn lucky - is the story of another of my uncles. Two years ago, Johnson County redrew the flood maps and his house for the first time ever was listed as in a flood plain and he was told to get insurance. Well, it had never flooded up to his house, so he was trying to fight it. But he finally gave up the fight and got the insurance. Good thing, because he had 4 inches of water in his house, and he was at the high point of the neighborhood.

Makes you think twice about not getting flood insurance.