thedrifter
07-30-08, 12:45 PM
Intro to Marines: flood
Jennifer Putnam - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 7/30/08 Section: Metro
Matt White is boxing up his belongings to set off for the Marines.
And thanks to the flood, he doesn't have much to pack.
The UI freshman enlisted in the Marines after finishing his first year at Iowa but didn't plan on spending the summer being flooded out of his home. The 4-foot tall wall of sandbags around his neighborhood on Normandy Drive failed to keep the water out, despite neighborhs' predictions that water wouldn't breach the barrier.
White said the city kept pushing back the time when the street would be evacuated. He and his mother, Maurine Braddock, were finally forced to leave on June 12.
"It came down to 2 in the morning," White said. "And we only had 30 minutes to get out, which didn't give us much time at all."
He and his mother moved out some items, but they left behind a furnished house. They stored some things at White's father's house when they moved to an apartment near City High.
"I was lucky that I could, because other people had nowhere to put their stuff," he said.
They found an apartment that allowed short-term renting.
Braddock said she just had time to put her cats and some clothes in the car.
"It was a very chaotic and stressful time," she said. When White and Braddock surveyed damage on their house, the waterline reached 57 inches up the wall.
The smell was horrible, and the wood flooring was warped and destroyed, they said.
Their furniture had floated around the house, they said.
"Stuff from my bathroom was in my kitchen," White said.
They washed flood-damaged clothes three or four times, but the floodwater stench remained. They threw them out.
Luckily, Braddock had purchased flood insurance three months before the flood.
"It was just by an accident of fate," she said.
After the flood, an insurance official and contractor came to inspect the home and determined it will need to be stripped to its frame to be renovated. However, Braddock believes it would be better off to just raze it.
"The property won't really be worth anything anymore," she said. Braddok is also worried about possible fires.
"It's a matter of safety," she said.
Still, Braddock and White say they are most concerned with what happened to their friends and neighbors, many of whom don't have flood insurance.
"They lost a fair amount more than we did," she said.
She has begun organizing a relief effort for the neighborhood, she said.
E-mail DI reporter Jennifer Putnam at:
jennifer-putnam@uiowa.edu
Ellie
Jennifer Putnam - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 7/30/08 Section: Metro
Matt White is boxing up his belongings to set off for the Marines.
And thanks to the flood, he doesn't have much to pack.
The UI freshman enlisted in the Marines after finishing his first year at Iowa but didn't plan on spending the summer being flooded out of his home. The 4-foot tall wall of sandbags around his neighborhood on Normandy Drive failed to keep the water out, despite neighborhs' predictions that water wouldn't breach the barrier.
White said the city kept pushing back the time when the street would be evacuated. He and his mother, Maurine Braddock, were finally forced to leave on June 12.
"It came down to 2 in the morning," White said. "And we only had 30 minutes to get out, which didn't give us much time at all."
He and his mother moved out some items, but they left behind a furnished house. They stored some things at White's father's house when they moved to an apartment near City High.
"I was lucky that I could, because other people had nowhere to put their stuff," he said.
They found an apartment that allowed short-term renting.
Braddock said she just had time to put her cats and some clothes in the car.
"It was a very chaotic and stressful time," she said. When White and Braddock surveyed damage on their house, the waterline reached 57 inches up the wall.
The smell was horrible, and the wood flooring was warped and destroyed, they said.
Their furniture had floated around the house, they said.
"Stuff from my bathroom was in my kitchen," White said.
They washed flood-damaged clothes three or four times, but the floodwater stench remained. They threw them out.
Luckily, Braddock had purchased flood insurance three months before the flood.
"It was just by an accident of fate," she said.
After the flood, an insurance official and contractor came to inspect the home and determined it will need to be stripped to its frame to be renovated. However, Braddock believes it would be better off to just raze it.
"The property won't really be worth anything anymore," she said. Braddok is also worried about possible fires.
"It's a matter of safety," she said.
Still, Braddock and White say they are most concerned with what happened to their friends and neighbors, many of whom don't have flood insurance.
"They lost a fair amount more than we did," she said.
She has begun organizing a relief effort for the neighborhood, she said.
E-mail DI reporter Jennifer Putnam at:
jennifer-putnam@uiowa.edu
Ellie