What do you do with a problem?
Rebuilding their lives after a flood forced them from their Hatfield home has helped Jessica Perkins and her kids discover that even in tragedy, there are possibilities for growth.
Tucked away in one of the dozens of waterlogged boxes in Jessica Perkins’ garage was a children’s book entitled, What Do You Do With a Problem? The cover of the book shows a child bent against a fierce storm, his umbrella inside out.
It’s hard to imagine a more apt analogy for the literal and figurative storm that Perkins and her children have been bending themselves against for the past three years after severe flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida forced them from their Hatfield home in September 2021.
For the next two and a half years, she and her kids would call an extended-stay hotel their home as they tried to piece their lives back together. Perkins would come to discover that the children’s book in her flooded garage would have plenty of application for adults too.
“This was going to be our sanctuary” A graduate of Drexel University with degrees in psychology and media arts, Perkins’ entrepreneurial instincts kicked in after the birth of her three kids. She saw that her children made sense of the world through sensing the world, and began creating sensory toys that would stimulate their creativity and curiosity. After years of designing toys and gifting her creations to friends and family, Perkins decided to start selling her goodies, and launched her Mama May I website and store in 2009.
More than a decade later, Perkins' plans had to be put on hold as she experienced an extraordinarily difficult situation in her personal life. She moved out of Philadelphia and began looking for a new place to live. After putting offers in on about a dozen houses, she found one in Hatfield that she felt sure was the right one.
The water line on Jessica Perkins’ garage door hints at the destruction inside.
“We were coming out of a very toxic situation, and this was going to be our sanctuary space,” she says It was a smaller house than others she’d considered, but that was OK, because it had a large detached garage a perfect space for her workshop and studio. Her vision for the property included hosting homeschool co-op classes, and her kids— 13, 10, and 7 at the time—were excited to help create a kind of “nature playground” in the backyard that would be a perfect “playful learning” area.
She and the kids moved in during late
July and early August of 2021. “I had just gotten the kids’ rooms put together, finally,” she says “They all had their own little ‘nests.’”
“I couldn’t open the garage door”
The calendar had just flipped to September, and her kids were away with family for a few days Perkins decided to make one last trip to central Pennsylvania to get the rest of their things, which had been in storage at the home of a family member.
On September 1, Hatfield received nearly 8” of rain most of it falling in a 6-hour span of time. Still not that familiar with the area, Perkins remembers watching the news at her parent’s home and thinking, ‘Oh, that looks like where my house is.’
With over 7' of water in the garage, and 2' in the house, little from Perkins’ home was salvageable.
In the morning she drove home, and was relieved to see there were no detours or traffic backups. She thought she was in the clear.
“And then I tried to open the garage door, and I couldn’t,” she recalls. “I had to pound it open, and even then I was only able to open it a crack.”
But a crack was all she needed to confirm her worst suspicion, and another look at the garage door revealed the awful truth a clearly
visible line showing the level the water had risen to more than 7 feet up.
“We were basically using the garage as storage, and moving things into the house piece by piece. So most of what we had was still in the garage,” she says. “Nothing in there was salvageable.”
Worse yet, Perkins did not have contents insurance on the homeowner’s policy that was just switched into her name.
Her first thought was for her kids. “We had just gotten set up,” she says. “What would this do to their little hearts?’”
The power of (a new) community
After a couple of “false starts” with hotels, Perkins landed at an extended stay complex, with a small apartment that included a kitchenette with a small stovetop, but no oven; Perkins added an air fryer. “We were still able to cook dinners and bake birthday cakes,” she
says. “You find ways to get creative.”
There was less creativity when it came to cleaning out the house. “We did the best we could," she says, “but then we just got a huge dumpster and tossed everything.” In some ways, she adds, it was a not-so-subtle “nudge” she and the kids needed to make a break with a difficult past. “In a way, all of that stuff was part of our old life,” she says. “I couldn’t purge it because of the kids’ sentimental attachment to it, but this was like nature’s way of saying, ‘No, you need to let it go ’ So we did—and it showed us that we really don’t need that much that home is wherever we are together.”
Perkins learned something else in the process, too: It was OK to ask for help— and accept it when offered. “One of my coping mechanisms is to not rely on other people, because other people let
The water had receded quite a bit the next day when Perkins took this photo.
me down,” she says. “But I was put in a position where I couldn’t just rely on myself I had to accept help from other people, even complete strangers, and it was a beautiful thing to not really even be part of this community yet, and to have strangers show up to help.”
People would send over a meal, or volunteer to help with laundry. When he heard about what happened, an
employee at the Hatfield post office showed up with a pump and a vacuum to pump out her crawlspace. “It was like all of these knights in shining armor showed up to help us out. This was a good reminder that it’s OK to accept help from others,” she says. “I really feel like, when there’s a need, people are ready to help They show up and step up. That restores a little bit of your faith in humanity.”
Finding
her voice— and learning to use it
this, but the system makes it hard to access them, and even creates barriers, particularly in the areas of paperwork and documentation,” she says. “The experience helped me become a good researcher.” She also learned the value of connections. “You need to look for opportunities to connect with people, because someone just might have a lead to somewhere else you need to go,” she says. “You need to remain open and
“I feel like, when there’s a need, people are ready to help. That restores a little bit of your faith in humanity.”
Jessica Perkins
Advocating for herself and the kids throughout their ordeal was a full-time job in itself. Perkins says the experience helped her find her voice, and to use it sometimes in ways she never had before.
“There are resources that are supposed to be available to you in situations like
curious. It was like detective work.”
One of the connections she made was with Hatfield Township staff. “The township reached out to me early on,” she says “I had some friends who were veterans of these types of situations, and they were telling me to buckle up, because it could take two to three years. But the township was proactive in reaching out to homeowners. And I can’t really speak highly enough of [Township Manager] Aaron Bibro. He caught a lot of my big feelings, even if they were a result of my frustration with the system. He totally understood that, and that felt really good—like I had somebody in my corner in a difficult time.”
Even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided
funding to purchase Perkin’s home, she moved back into the house near the end of 2023, and continues to search for a home or building lot in this area. “I would love to build a small house somewhere in our community that I could expand modularly, as I’m able to afford it,”
Perkins says. “I want to stay here and pursue my vision to create a studio where we can invite kids and grownups to do some playful healing and connection, to engage in creativity, curiosity, and learning. That is what my life’s work is all about.”
You can connect with Jessica and shop the Mother May I line of handmade toys at jessicaperkins.com
