Oh, you want a plan? – We started the day with a solid plan: drop the kids at Primrose Longmont, have call with insurance adjuster in the car as we head down to Broomfield to see Medium-term housing option (February – August+), go to Disaster Assistance Center, go to storage unit, etc.
Instead by around 6:30am, the plan was already shot. Because of the snow, Primrose Longmont was operating under a 2 hour delay, and not opening until 9:30. And we were scheduled to see the house at 10am. Longmont is 40 minutes away. There’s no way — so we pivot and decide the kids will go to their school, and we’l drive 40 minutes in the snow to get there. It’s our only choice.
We tell Avery the good news about seeing her friends and teachers, and get on our way. About 10 minutes into the drive, we get the message that the house tour at 10am is now cancelled because the current tenant has tested positive for COVID. But we already told Avery we’re going to her school, and I just simply don’t have it in my heart to change it on her again.
So now, we’re driving in the snow for 25 miles for no reason other than to try to create a tiny bit of normalcy for our 3 year old who is beginning to understand her world is completely different now.
All before 9am.
Insurance – In the car, Nick did a long questionnaire with the insurance adjuster. Things like: What kind of siding did the house have? What percentage of the house was carpet vs. hardwood? Was there crown molding? The adjuster takes all the information and says he’ll get back to us ASAP. Still haven’t heard anything, but hopefully we will know more soon.
Back on track – After dropping the kids off, we go to a favorite bakery and coffee shop to relax, make a plan, and do a Zoom tour of the Broomfield house. The current tenant (husband has COVID, wife gives us the tour) walked us through the house to give us a better sense of the layout. It’s similar to where we stayed in August-September 2020, but the basement is almost completely finished. There’s a sitting room and two offices down there. 1 office is totally stocked, including a standing desk and two monitors! The other needs a little bit of finish (some paint, finishing the electrical outlets) and then it will be ready as well. The landlord said he already has a standing desk to put in it for us, so we plan that he’ll get someone in there to finish it soon after we move in. We confirm that we’re in, and we get the ball rolling with the relocation assistance company to sign leases, provide payment, etc. ✔️
Disaster Assistance Center – With our solid insurance coverage and annual income, we’re pretty confident we won’t need/get any FEMA aid, but they’re encouraging everyone to register anyway. So, we went. It’s like a huge race expo….but the race is rebuilding your entire life.
There are two main tasks to accomplish while there: do the FEMA registration and fill out the paperwork for the Community Foundation. The Foundation is providing checks for every family impacted, regardless of insurance status, need, etc. And while it feels weird taking money when we know we’re going to be fine, we registered anyway. We’re confident that the rest of the Foundation funds are going to be funneled to the families that need it most, and we’ll be paying all this forward at some point.
There are dozens of other resources available: charities with essential supplies, meals being distributed, free N95 masks and Covid tests (we grabbed those!), mental health services, all the local municipalities to answer questions about clean-up and rebuild, the DMV and birth certificate desk, unemployment office, volunteer organizations, etc.
Other than registering for FEMA and the foundation, grabbing some masks and tests, the only other thing we did was enter our information with CrisisCleanup.org. They organize volunteers who go through ruins from natural disasters looking for people’s treasures.
We expect that basically nothing else will be rescued from our lot other than what we’ve already found. But, Kate’s wedding ring was in the (freshly remodeled) master bathroom, and we can see all the finishes of the bathroom on the floor in the garage (light fixtures, tile, shower glass, etc). Someone with the right tools/training might be able to do a quick hunt in that small area to see if the ring is in there. We’re definitely not counting on anything, but it seemed worth giving them our information. The ash is apparently pretty toxic, so it’s possible that no volunteer clean-up will happen at all (they do mostly hurricane, tornado, and flood recovery).
After we left DAC, we took some COVID tests to confirm we’re still negative and headed to Tom and Debbie’s. We collected some of the stuff delivered there, caught them up on the day, and then headed to continue the work for the day.
Storage Unit – We’ve heard that storage units can become hard to find in situations like this, so we reserved one earlier this week and went by to pick up the lock and get access. We have basically nothing to put there now, but we may want to make our 6 month rental a bit more like home. We may move the landlord’s furniture around, buy some of our own (Theo probably won’t do great in a queen size bed, for example), or take up friends/family on their generous offers of stuff.
Path Forward – So now, we’re looking at living where we first lived when we moved to CO, having a storage unit in the same complex, and starting over in Colorado entirely. With almost no belongings. It’s a lot.
The daunting tasks and uncertainty ahead are pretty overwhelming. We’re glad to have some logistics figured out, but it’s just so far from where we thought we’d be in 2022. It’s hard to get our heads around it, and it’s so sad when we think about the life we’re trying to build for our kids and the long road ahead to really get there. We know we’ll get through all this — but please keep us in your thoughts and send all the good healing vibes our way. ❤️
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