My grandparents were evacuated from their Cedar Rapids home on Wednesday, June 11, and didn’t get back to their home until June 20.

My mom got to go on a boat to rescue out cat, Cosmo. She said it was scary to be inside the house full of water. The man who went with her found Cosmo under a bed upstairs.

You cannot believe the way the house looked when I finally got to see it. We were all speechless. I was shocked. My little sister cried. My grandma, my mom and aunts cried. It looked like there had been a war. It smelled really bad, and everybody wore masks.

Furniture was thrown everywhere, and the living room TV was thrown forward and shattered. The refrigerator was tipped sideways. I looked around and saw many of my things covered in black mud. They said it was too hard to save anything. My skateboard, fishing pole, movies, clothes and pictures were all piled in front of the house by the street, along with the rest of the memories of my grandparents’ house.

I was very sad. People were walking around everywhere talking to neighbors. They were all sad. They hugged and cried. People who did not live by my grandma’s house would drive by the houses and point and shake their heads or take pictures. I guess they wanted to remember. I will never forget.

My grandpa and uncles have been working really hard on the house every day. They ripped all the walls out. I got to help. Now they have a new house inside. I cannot wait to get back to their house.

There will always be floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. I only hope that I will never see another one in my lifetime like the flood I saw when I was 10.