No insurance for flooded couple

Wednesday, September 4, 2002
Wendy sits in front of a bench enshrouded by flood debris.

STRATTON -- An angry summer thunderstorm transformed a normally tame creek, a pastureland canyon and a graveled county road into raging rivers that converged at DeeAnn and Larry Eden's house.

In one fell swoop on the afternoon of Aug. 26, the Stratton couple lost their home, most all their belongings and their livelihood.

Despite the destruction at their home south of Swanson Lake, the Edens still have what is most important -- each other, and their 8-year-old black Lab, Wendy. They're not ungrateful for that.

Larry's new Kenworth slammed into a cottonwood tree a quarter mile down Chick's Creek.

But almost worse than losing everything is the realization that insurance won't cover the losses.

"We'd almost rather have had a tornado or a fire," Larry said. "Those would have been covered by insurance."

A typical homeowner's insurance policy does not cover flood damage, and because Hitchcock County does not participate in the federal government's flood plain program, the Edens haven't had access to that flood insurance. So, their losses are their own.

Flood waters filled the new basement; the Edens wonder about the extent of damage to new furnace and air conditioning units.

When the storm hit Monday afternoon, Larry and two carpenters, Mark Brown of Benkelman and Clint Latta of Stratton, were working in the couple's new basement trying to reinforce an egress window on the west.

The Edens had just moved their 21-year-old home onto a full basement, and were in the process of finishing the walls downstairs. Upstairs, everything that normally hung on the walls or was stored in upper cupboards had been put on the floor for the very short trip from the original location onto the new foundation.

Then the floodwaters hit.

When the basement window shattered, Larry, Mark and Clint evacuated the basement, and -- with Mark carrying Wendy -- scrambled up the slippery hill away from the rising waters. The men and the dog huddled against the rain, hail and wind for almost three hours, watching as the Edens' two garages, Larry's new white Kenworth truck and the carpenters' pickups and tools washed away.

The truck slammed against a cottonwood tree about a quarter mile north; all that showed above the white waters was the top couple inches of the exhaust stacks.

The deep trench dug around the the basement walls filled to the brim, and the rushing water crept up the sides of the ground floor and poured through windows and doors.

When the rain quit and the waters receded a little, Larry called DeeAnn at work in McCook, and told her not to come home until Tuesday, not only because of the flood damage but also because he didn't know how bad the county roads were between Highway 25 and their home.

"Larry told me it was bad," DeeAnn said. "But I never fathomed, in my worst fears, that it would be this bad."

Larry and DeeAnn lost their garages filled with tools and reloading supplies, their new truck and everything below the three-foot water mark in the house.

The deep freeze and refrigerator floated, then fell over and filled with water. Upholstered furniture and mattresses are waterlogged, bedding and clothes are drenched. DeeAnn's crafts and craft supplies are saturated. Small kitchen appliances may or may not work, electronics like the TV and stereos are total losses -- do they dare turn on the electricity?

The carpeting was a creamy off-white. "We always took our shoes off at the back door," Larry said. Now the carpeting is mud-brown, and squishes. It doesn't matter now that no one takes their shoes off at the back door.

Larry and DeeAnn are afraid that the floors are starting to sag, and everything will eventually fall into the basement. "The shelves in the cupboards are already starting to bow," Dee Ann said Friday morning.

"I like shoes," Dee Ann said. "I was able to salvage four pairs of tennis shoes." The clothes the couple was able to save -- those that hung on closet rods above the flood waters -- hang now in a storage container parked temporarily in the back yard.

The couple doesn't complain, moan-and-groan. They have each other, and Wendy. But all the luck they've had this year seems to be bad: Larry has had surgery on both elbows and wrists, DeeAnn had surgery to remove wisdom teeth. Wendy had a hysterectomy.

And Larry and DeeAnn are afraid they'll have to leave Wendy behind, at DeeAnn's parents' place across the road, if they have to move into an apartment in town.

"It's what we'll have to do," Larry said, almost choking on the words. DeeAnn gently patted the confused Lab's graying head. "It's all we can afford."

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