BROOKINGS – Although the rains that caused flash flooding throughout Brookings County Wednesday night and Thursday morning have left, a lot of people throughout Brookings are still cleaning up flooded basements.
Homes around 17th Avenue South were hit hard by drainage problems, with pulled-up carpets and carpet padding resting on many driveways along the avenue.
One such home, that of Brian and Michelle Lueders, had 4 feet of muddy water come into their basement after a basement window broke from the pressure of pooling water. The husband and wife have lived in their home for 13 years without experiencing water issues before. They have three kids, and their two sons’ bedrooms were downstairs.
Like many, they woke up early Thursday morning to the flood warning that was sent out to area cell phones.
“We heard our sump pumps running and running, and we went down. That’s how we found just a little bit of water on our floor,” Michelle said.
She and one of her sons quickly went around the basement unplugging electronics.
“I was literally knocked off my feet when the water caved in the windows,” she said.
She recorded footage with her phone some of the aftermath from the basement stairs, showing dog food peppering the water, swirling around a fridge that was lazily floating in the high waters. The sound of water still gushing could be heard in the background.
Friends, family and neighbors came over later Thursday to help haul stuff up out of the basement and out to the garage and driveway, and the Lueders family tried to help the neighbors where they could.
“That side of the street at about 4 in the morning did not have electricity. We ran extension cords over so they could keep their sump pumps running across the street. I don’t know if they got water in their basements. We don’t know of anybody else on our side that had water like we did,” Michelle said. “It was kind of a blur (Thursday).”
“Things could have been better, but they could have been worse,” Brian said.
That’s because with how much water they had, the water level came above the socket their sump pump was plugged into, and yet it kept running fine. Without that pump running, there’s no telling how much worse the damage might have been.
Still, there’s a lot left to do. As of Friday morning, they had the bottom halves of the sheetrock walls torn out and a lot has been hauled out, but the watermarks and dried mud are still everywhere.
“Both of our boys have bedrooms downstairs. Everything is gone. Their dressers, the bedding, their mattresses. Everything. It was done for. I think we’ll be able to save some of the stuff, but we got to hose everything off because it’s covered in mud. A lot of it’s wet yet. Once we get more people here, that’s going to be our plan: pull everything out and dry things off,” Michelle said.
Things weren’t much better for Matt and Michele Schmidt around the corner on nearby Windermere Way. Matt said they woke up around 3:15 a.m. Thursday when their golden retriever jumped on their bed. He saw how hard it was raining outside. As it turned out, they had lost power and their sump pump couldn’t keep up with the water that was coming in, resulting in some water blanketing the floor.
Then Matt heard something cracking.
“That was the outer (window) pane breaking, and then the inner pane broke, and then the water came gushing in. You can see we’ve got mulch, we’ve got pinecones, we’ve pieces of wood. When you look outside, we had two tires in our front yard, we’ve got firewood from somewhere up on 17th Avenue,” Matt said.
As the water poured in, he quickly tried to save important documents such as tax and medical records.
Michele said this isn’t their first experience with flooding. When they lived in Nebraska, they dealt with a flooded basement after 8 inches of snow melted quickly. She said they’d learned some hard lessons about preparing for water in the basement through that, including placing photos and other such mementos far from the ground.
They moved into their current home in 2013, and the last time waters got comparably high was during the heavy rains in the summer of 2014, but the damage wasn’t so bad then. Just some standing water, necessitating new padding and new carpet.
According to the adjustor, most of the furniture downstairs is a loss.
“Odds are all the wood’s going to warp, so that’s going to be tossed. The bed absorbed water, so that’s out. The night stands, those are gone. I’m going to guess that we’re going to need a new furnace and a new water heater. Thankfully the freezer works. They talked about that vanity inside the bathroom right over there, that’s a loss. A lot of the stuff here is going to be gone,” Matt said.
Although they didn’t lose a lot of sentimental or family items – a prized collection of baseball and hockey cards aside – in Thursday’s flooding, it is still a frustrating experience that many others in the area are sharing, too.
“The houses on the west if you go through this neighborhood, they all had sewer backup. Thankfully we didn’t have that,” Matt said.
Matt said the mess he’s in should be preventable, a result of the city’s ongoing drainage problems.
“The thing that really stinks about this is all the water off 17th Avenue comes right through there. There’s no way that storm drain kept up. As you saw with where the mulch and everything is in the two yards, that’s how high it was. When I walked over to see how the neighbors were doing 4:30, 5 a.m. yesterday morning, I had water ankle deep on the sidewalk,” Matt said.
His next-door neighbor, Dale Berkland, agreed. A culvert and ditch runs between their properties.
“The biggest thing is when the water gets backed up this high because of that culvert, the city shouldn’t be running all that water on us and then saying that it’s not their problem. Well, it is your problem because you’re running all that water from 17th down through here. When it gets that backed up that far, there are major problems,” Berkland said.
“I’d like to see the city step in and help on this, but you can drive around our development and you can see all the carpet and stuff that’s on the driveways,” Matt said. “This is obviously something that needs to be fixed. Looking at Brookings, you can’t just keep pushing the problem elsewhere. … Here’s one of the effects.”
Berkland said he was aware of the flooding early on that night. “I don’t remember what time it was, but we were watching it grow. We could still see our rocks out there when we first noticed it, but it slowly disappeared.”
The damage at his home isn’t bad. They didn’t have any basement windows cave in, though the waters were just as high as they were next door, and the watermarks are still apparent.
“We had water, but we only had a couple inches of water. So, we lost the carpet basically. Some sheetrock, but we were able to save our furniture,” Berkland said.
Frustrations with drainage aside, Matt and Michele are grateful for the help they’ve received and have been offered from friends and neighbors.
“We can’t say enough about the community helping us out that way,” Matt said.
Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.
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Cheryl Berkland photo:
Above, when a culvert in Windermere Way couldn’t keep up with the water during Thursday morning’s rains, water pooled high between the properties of Matt and Michele Schmidt and Dale and Cheryl Berkland. The water left a 2-foot high watermark on the back of the Berklands’ house, and the resulting pressure was enough to cave in a basement window on the Schmidts’ house. The spot has flooded before, during the summer 2014 rains, though it didn’t leave as much damage to Schmidt’s house then. The Schmidts and the Berklands hope that the city will work to improve the drainage situation.
Register photos:
Below 1, With the help of family, friends and neighbors, Brian and Michelle Lueders have been busy cleaning up their 17th Avenue South basement after a basement window broke from pressure from high waters. As they work on the basement itself, a lot of their belongings have been moved from the basement to their garage for them to assess and hopefully salvage.
Below 2, the sight of possessions stowed away in garages and carpets rolled up on the edge of a driveway were quite common along 17th Avenue South on Friday.
Below 3, damage is shown in the basement of the Schmidts’ house.
Below 4, a drainage culvert between the Berklands’ and the Schmidts’ homes.
Below 5, a boarded-up window at the Schmidts’ home, where floodwaters flowed into their basement.
Below 6, belongings, carpet and sheetrock have been removed from the Lueders’ home as part of their cleanup.
