Day 18 – Grand Forks

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

I both got up at 5 am and headed to the kitchen to make the coffee and set up a few things for Eileen.   Shortly afterwards, Delbert came to the kitchen and boiled some hot water for his morning Mate.   At 6 am Sharon started to get the lunch food ready for us, while Bethany assisted Eileen with preparing breakfast.

After breakfast Mark Rempel led devotions and then we were given our job assignments for the day.   Most of us returned to the job sites where we had finished on Monday, however, Sam, Delbert and Yolanda went to the ‘ Redding ‘ house to make the recommended insulation changes that the inspector had required.

Valter, Ingried and I went to Radek’s house where we completed most of the trim work, installed shelves, filled holes, sanded and ‘ dap’d ‘ the baseboards and trim, as well as, grouted half of the shower tile.

The other groups continued to drywall, mud, trim, insulate and complete numerous odd jobs at their sites.

When we returned to camp as usual, the River Valley church ladies had prepared a full meal for us.  Afterward supper, Cole, Mark and I were on kitchen patrol, so we cleaned the dishes before relaxing.

During the day, Ingried and I met the lady next door, who was watering her flowers in the back yard.   I had seen no one at the house in the last 2 weeks and she explained that she and her husband have been staying at a motel.   They had insurance to cover the flood damage to their basement, but they still hadn’t received an answer from them regarding  a resolution.    They hadn’t lived in their house since the flood and they were told that if they lived in their house, it would affect their settlement and it might be much less if they stayed there, so they have been staying at a motel, waiting for an answer.   She also told us that they were totally unaware that their house could potentially flood on the night that it happened.   At 2 am they woke up to the sound of water running in their basement and found that there was 2 feet of water in it.   They thought it was a water leak so they shut off their water supply but that didn’t help.  When they investigated further, they found that the water was leaking through the foundation.   When they looked outside, they saw their was water around their house and she didn’t want to leave but her husband insisted that they leave.    When they drove towards the town centre to leave Grand Forks, their passage was blocked by water, so they turned around and went south and crossed the river close to where the church is, where we are staying.

All of the people we have talked to, informed us that they were caught unawares.  Radek and his wife had told us that they had gone around the neighbourhood waking up people to warn them of the problem.

One of the experiences of volunteering for MDS is that you get to meet a lot of wonderful people and if you’re willing to sit and listen, you will hear a lot of tragic and inspirational stories, more than I can share in a journal.