Santa Clara Flood 2012 — Shan & Sue Gubler

My first stop Monday (Day 6) was at the Gubler’s house.  Sue is a dear friend.  I grew up with her siblings.  They had recently rebuilt this home that was her family’s years ago.  Their house was not really in the direct line of water.  They were flooded by an interesting means.  When the water came through toward Riverfront, it hit the block wall around the little community.  The wall to the left of the entrance ironically protected Shan’s sister, Cami’s house, from the flood damage.  However, as the water hit the wall, it followed it to the left and began to run behind the Barben’s house and into Shan and Sue’s back yard.  The fact that the back yard was dug out for a walk out basement, provided a nice “hole” for the water to puddle in. And puddle it did, and then filled up their basement.

The Gubler’s basement contained their office and scrapbooks among all the other furniture and belongings.  It took 6 pumps 6 hours to drain all the water out of the basement.  Their home was not even drained until the next day– one of the last to be drained and unloaded.  As the items came out of the basement, covered in mud, painstaking work then began.  Many people began spraying items off.  But the greatest gift were the many people that would take photos, journals and business papers and go through them one by one in an attempt to save them.  And many were saved.

On top of all this, the Gubler’s daughter, Jeni, was due with her first child.  The flood happened on Tuesday and Jenni was due on Friday.  You can imagine Sue’s feelings of panic with her house upside down and knowing that she needed to be there for her daughter.  Well, one of those tender mercies was that baby Olivia knew the plight of her grandmother and waited long enough for her to get settled.  (To read the sweet story by Jeni and see the photos of the home and the damage and the help, click here to read Jeni’s wonderful blog post.)

That Monday morning when I popped in on Sue, she was sitting at her kitchen table with a single friend.  This sweet lady was helping Sue take photos out of a large tote and put them in ziploc bags.  These hundreds (if not thousands) of photos had been cleaned and saved by so many.  Sue just expressed gratitude that she was able to get this far, had this much help and if she could just get her kitchen area clean, she would feel okay about leaving to go welcome a new baby.  Sue always has a smile on her face and is just one tremendous woman!