Our Artisans In Crisis- The Crisis Continues...

We posted previously about the crisis a couple of our Artisans have been facing (read the original post here), and had an out pouring out well wishes from numerous customer, fellow sellers, and Etsians. We would like to thank everyone that has shown concern for their plight, and to the folks that have made purchases in our Etsy store. We will continue to collect and donate our profits (and our elbow grease) to their cleanup.

However, we had a bit of a set back....

Yes you are looking at a car in the middle of a slowly receding flash flood. More importantly, you are looking at Crystal's car. This photo was taken after the water had already receded more than 6 inches.

She had been on her way home from classes one evening last week when we got hit with a system of severe weather. We had several inches of rain drop within an hour, not to mention quarter sized hail and gusts of wind up to 60 miles per hour.

During this period she decided it best to go to her boyfriend's house to wait out the storm, as his home was closer to her location than driving back to her place. The rain was so heavy that she said she could barely see out of the windshield. She drove the car onto her boyfriend's street, which appeared to be wet but not flooded. Within a minute the water rose from several inches to several feet on the street, and began pouring into the interior of the car. She was able to shove the door open and literally swim out of the car and onto one of the lawns of the residences just as the car began floating away.

She's ok. But the car is still being worked on. And guess what that water is? If you said sewage you were right! The sewers in our city are so old that they overflow and mix with our storm drains at points. This area is one of them (the heavy equipment you see is the city's attempt to correct that with sewer upgraded in this neighborhood).

We are continuing to accept donations via our 'Donate' button, as well as profits from out etsy store. We are also accepting donations of 'sewage-be-gone' if anyone has some handy!