Review - The Flood pt. 2: The Best Western or the worst?

If you missed the first part, you can jump to it here: PART 1

Most of us stood on the third floor watching the motel go under. A few had stayed in the lobby to see about pricing. They soon returned to announce that the price was firmly set at $70. Most of the people there who had fled, didn't have any money. They'd left before they could even think to grab their purses and wallets. Many didn't have any cash, because they'd just paid for their room across the street.  Further more, the guy at the Best Western informed us that he wouldn't allow more than four to a room, even if it was just sitting out a flood. My brother and I had grabbed cash, but at that rate we couldn't afford to put everyone up. So I'd just like to thank the Best Western for that.

We stayed there awhile and watched. Some people did get a room together, but most were looking at moving on to another motel. My brother at this point told me to watch our stuff while he tried to get the guy to come down on price. This is what he said. In reality he went back out into the flood and began helping people cross a road that was quickly becoming a river. I did film a little more and get off a few more still shots, before my camera died. Like I said yesterday, I can't transfer the video cause I don't have the hardware anymore, but here are the still shots I took from the third floor.

This is a shot of the motel we'd left off in the distance, behind the Wendy's. Because of the slope of the road, the Best Western escaped flooding. Just beyond that truck though, you can see the water already quite high.

This is the side street between the Best Western and the Kroger's. It wasn't covered at all when we walked across just minutes before. Here you can see it already streaming down.

A closer look at the current sweeping across the Kroger's.

A closer shot of the motel. This was on the high side. The water got higher yet, but my camera died after this picture.

When my brother got back, we headed over to a cheaper place. We helped as many as we could get into a few rooms, and took a room ourselves. I was kicking myself at forgetting things already. First and foremost, a dry change of clothes. Flipping on the TV I saw the one and only shot of the area I would see during any of the coverage of the flood. Which is not a knock against other places that got hit hard, it just feels a bit though like the area was passed over.

My brother made a couple trips out to see the level of flooding, nervous about his truck. Here is a short video he shot at the edge of the flood with his phone. He didn't dare go farther.

Later that night the water over the motel did finally recede to a point where he was able to get the truck out. It sputtered madly but he managed to drive it out just in case it flooded again. The room was also drained enough to enter and we found miraculously that some clothes we'd kept in a plastic bin had floated on top of the water. I was quite happy to change into clean dry clothes. Some friends came by later and very sweetly brought us some supplies and washed our clothes for us. The rest of the night we spent watching exhaustedly, the coverage of the flooding throughout the state.

Tomorrow, part 3