One year on...

Yesterday marks the one year anniversary of the Bay of Plenty floods. Our house was flooded with rain water and overflowing sewage. We lost just about everything downstairs. My car, which was parked in the garage, was written off too. Our house, our Nana's house and most of our neighbor's houses were deemed inhabitable until they were totally stripped out, disinfected, dried out and rebuilt.

We lived in a motel for 2 months. We sent Nana to Australia to live with Dad for 3 months. And even then we were the first house in our street to be rehabited. The people across the road only just moved back in a month or two ago.

We got a nasty virus from the flood water. My doctor told me that people had gotten hepatitis C as a result of spending time in the water, we fortunately didn't. The man next door ended up in hospital with an infection as a result of the exposure to the water.

I helped a Police man evacuate an elderly woman from across the road and kept her warm upstairs at my place till we could get hold of her daughter. Because of the flood waters I couldn't get to Nicole's school to pick her up. I eventually made it up there at about 3.30pm.

Even though all this happened, we were one of the lucky ones. Some people's whole houses were totally destroyed and it wasn't safe for them to go in and even get special things like family photos etc. We were also fully insured. A lot of people weren't at all.

I had some guardian angels over that time.... my good friend Suzanne who let me, Nicole and Nana stay at her house for a few days until we'd sorted out where to go from there. She also looked after Nicole when I was meeting with insurance assessors etc and helped bail out my Nana's lift.

My good friend Heather organized for me to borrow a car from her uncle for a week or so. And borrowed her husband's work van and helped me transport a huge load of wet and yucky fabric stuff to a commercial laundrette.

My other family, the Harrises. They came over and helped me move furniture, go though boxes, cry on their shoulders when the emotional impact of having to throw away ruined personal belongings of my late mother hit me.

And my Hunni. You were always there to listen to me, even if it was the middle of the night...yes, I remember the 1am phone call that first night. You helped me calm down and take it one step at a time when it just seemed too enormous to deal with. You spent hours wandering around shops with me getting quotes for different things. I really appreciate you being here for me.

I worry when it rains heavily. That storm was supposedly a one in a hundred years type of occurrence....I wonder though....