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SANTA CLARA — If there's any point of solace in the lost pictures and ruined Christmas decorations that resulted from Tuesday's massive flooding disaster, one Santa Clara family may have found it.
A breach in a retention basin caused a surge of water to flow into a Santa Clara neighborhood Tuesday, resulting in flood damage to at least 25 homes and a dozen businesses, forcing residents to evacuate.
The family, in possession of some treasured pioneer artifacts including a shawl that came across the plains with one of their ancestors, managed to preserve their treasured heirlooms. Just a few weeks ago they took them out of the basement and into a storage facility for safer keeping.
"This is a picture of my husband's grandma. It would have been ruined if we left it down there," a member of the family said. "It's kind of a neat story."
They're still trying to salvage decade's worth of pictures, painstakingly prying them apart and wiping off red clay. They do it so a sudden surge of water can't wash away the lives and lessons of the family that came before. It's a bittersweet recovery, but a minor victory for the family nonetheless.
