Ellis House Serves as Sanctuary for Neighbor's Horses

Evacuating a home in a flood situation is hard enough. But imagine the challenge if, in addition to your human family members, you had to evacuate horses. This was the situation for AliBoo Farms last week. Luckily, next door neighbor Ellis House & Equestrian Center was able to help out. In all, eight horses were housed at Ellis House. Additional horses were moved to Big Rock, Il.

"Ours are used to being outside," Debbie Granat, Ellis House staff said. "At night we open the indoor arena for them to have shelter, so it actually worked out really nice."

The flooding at the AliBoo Farm and Ellis House was from Aux Sable Creek overflowing its banks. Both facilities are located off Route 52  on McKanna Road in Minooka. Ellis House was also inundated with water, but the stable that houses the horses stayed relatively dry. The interior of Ellis House was not so lucky. The rushing waters burst through a basement window and river water filled the basement of the house up to the second to the top step. For its part, AliBoo Farm had five feet of water in its barn.

During the height of the storm, Granat said they had to send people into the facility by boat to feed the horses.

By late Monday, according to the AliBoo Farm Facebook status, the horses were back at their home.