FLOODING FIASCO

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Courtesy Photo Mott residents are cleaning up after the Cannonball River overflowed over the weekend. The water is receding.

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“Home is home,” said Marian Schmidt, who is happy to have a place to stay after evacuating due to flooding in Mott. Though she is staying with family she is eager to return to the home she has lived in for 25 years.

Schmidt is staying with her son, William and his wife, Nannette since the Cannonball River overflowed over the weekend.

“I’m very upset,” Schmidt said. “It’s very frustrating.”

The river is receding and has gone down 10-12 feet, said Troy Mosbrucker, Mott mayor.

Though it’s going down, Schmidt has not been able to return home since Thursday, March 19, and she has not had a tetanus shot. She said William and her other son, Frank have been back to see it.

“They said it really didn’t hit the main floor, it was just the basement, so I think I was lucky,” Schmidt said. “I could have had it worse but I’m thankful that it wasn’t.”

She said if the water would have been about 8 inches higher, it would have reached the main floor of her house.

Residents are continuing to clean up the mess but most residents of the 10 houses which had to evacuate have not been able to move back in.

Raymond Klein, who evacuated, said he was able to move the items he had in the basement out before the water came in. He said his furnace and water heater were the only things left in his basement.

He is well into the cleanup process.

“We pumped the water out and washed the basement out and the garage and patio,” Klein said, adding he is renting a house for now. “It will be a while before I get moved back in.”

He feels lucky that he didn’t have more damage, but said the winter storm the area experienced earlier this week set his cleanup back.

Mosbrucker said he was worried about pipes freezing in the storm, since the gas in the flooded homes was turned off. However, everyone was able to get back to their homes to plug in heaters before the storm, he said.

“Six or seven of them got water in them one way or another — either through the sewer coming up or from the flood,” Mosbrucker said.

He is not aware of any homes where water was higher than the basement. He added people must have their furnaces inspected before turning their gas back on.

Schmidt’s sons have been cleaning up her house and she said they have been an enormous help. She plans to get her tetanus shot and go home Monday and hopes to be moved back next week. Though she isn’t sure that will be possible.

This is the second time Schmidt’s home has flooded since she has lived there. She said the first time was a little over 10 years ago.

“That time it got onto the main floor,” she said, adding after the last flood she moved the washer, dryer and heater upstairs “so all that was really down there was the furnace.”

Tags: flood, fargo, bismarck, mott, missouri, rivercannonball, river