Shock left behind in Savanna as Plum River floodwaters recede
by admin on Jul.31, 2010, under Car insurance
SAVANNA, Ill. — The shock is taking longer to recede than the water.
When the Plum River succumbed early Saturday to the swell of record-setting rainfall, breaching the berms in this Mississippi River town, the floodwater found a path along the railroad tracks.
People who never had flood-water anywhere near their homes suddenly had standing water in their yards. Within a few hours, it was pressing its way into basements, eventually rising to the ceiling of some people’s living rooms.
There wasn’t time to save belongings.
“It came up 4 feet in 25 minutes,” said Jim Walters, standing in his yard among piles of soggy furniture and property that is headed for the landfill. “I tried to sandbag, but I realized how fast it was going up, and I said, ‘It’s a lost cause, guys.’”
There was nothing left to do but grab everything he could from the main floors of the house and get it away from the water.
“Our basement apartment was totally full of water,” Walters said. “My in-laws live there. I’d never seen any water come up like that. The river is a mile from our house. I thought there was no way it was coming in the house. For several hours, I wasn’t sure what was going on.
Much of the damage caused by the Plum River, including derailed train cars and buckled roadways, occurred in the area of Walters’ home at 1702 Erie Ave. When crossing the bridge from Illinois 84, the neighborhoods are the opposite direction of Savanna’s downtown.
Two blocks away, Brenda Preston was still in shock Tuesday from the river’s rapid rise. She and her husband and her 6-year-old daughter lost everything in the house, which will have to be gutted or demolished.
Four days after the flash flood, several feet of water still stood between the double glass in her living room’s bay window. She was in the living room Saturday morning, napping on the couch after working a 16-hour day on Friday, when one of her two dogs woke her up.
“I got up at 10:30 to let the dog out, and there was water all around the yard,” she said. “My car was in the street by my mailbox, and there was water almost to the car door, so I moved it and my husband’s truck.
“I took the dogs up to the neighbor’s, and I went back to grab family photos and some important papers. When I got back, the fire department was there and said I couldn’t go in, because there was water in my house in that short amount of time, and the power hadn’t been turned off yet.”
She watched as her house on Calumet Street filled with water.
“By the time they let me in, the water was past my couch cushions,” she said. “The only pictures I could save were the ones on my walls.”
And the water kept rising, stopping when it reached the porch light above the family’s front door.
Friends and family have since rallied around. The couple’s fathers took time off work to pull out carpeting and fixtures and to help get all of the appliances out of the house and ready to go to the dump.
“My dad lives on an island (Sabula, Ill.), and I got flooded,” Preston said.
Her father, Dennis Dixon, raised a gloved hand to his lower lip to show how high the floodwater was when he rescued his daughter’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle from the shed in the backyard.
“I don’t think about what could have happened if the dog didn’t wake her up,” he said. “The boat from the backyard filled with water and just floated away.”
The Preston and Wallace families have more in common than becoming first-time victims of flash flooding. Neither family had flood insurance, which is available only through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“When I bought the house, I was told you can’t have flood insurance in Savanna,” Brenda Preston said. “We’ve lost everything but some clothes that we pulled out and took to the Laundromat.
“We have a mortgage on this house, and we sure can’t afford to get another one. There are 40 houses down here that took on water, so that’s a lot of families who are going to need help.”
Wallace said he also is worried about how his family will survive the damage.
“We still have a lot of work to do — three more rooms to empty in the basement and all the electrical plugs to dry out, so we can get power back,” he said. “I have to get all the walls down, because the mold will come quick.
“We’ll haul the appliances and metals off for scrap, which will help pay for new ones. It’s all going to be out-of-pocket, which is a little overwhelming. Our family is spread out right now to wherever we’ve been able to find places to stay.”
But he knows he is not alone.
“Our neighbor’s basement wall shifted, and I won’t know about structural damage in my house until I get all the water out,” he said.
Many of those affected were hopeful Tuesday when Illinois state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, toured their neighborhoods and encouraged residents to save their receipts from flood fighting, saying the state may be able to help.
“I hope there’s some help out there, but I don’t know,” Preston said. “I mean, the people next door just bought that car that’s still underwater a week ago. They haven’t even made the first payment.”
She then repeated a sentiment that was expressed by several others in the neighborhood: “We just have to be grateful that no one died.”
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