RIVER VALLEY (KFSM) — As the historic flood waters start to recede, the cleanup process begins for many homeowners across the River Valley.
The Harms family says it could be months before they are able to move back in. Service Master along with several other people came out early Monday (June 3) morning to help begin this long and heartbreaking cleanup process.
"The Community Bible Church right up the street helped with sandbags a lot and it was enough to keep the snakes out and things like that," homeowner Jim Harms said.
Harms says it wasn't enough to keep the rising water from seeping into their home.
"There’s really not much you can do other than move your furniture and your most expensive stuff out before the water gets in there," Harms said.
Harms says he was expecting for the worst but thankfully he got a pleasant surprise when he returned home Sunday (June 2).
"Actually I was a little bit excited because the water didn’t come up any higher than about a foot so it could have been a lot worse," Harms said.
Water continues to shoot out of the carpet as you walk on it, so now the main issue is mold.
"So right now as the water has receded we have to start doing demo and doing flood cuts on the walls and have to take out the flooring materials just cause they are wet and we are trying to do all of this to prevent mold growth," Senior Account Manager for Service Master Mike Haney said.
Haney explains how hard everyone has been working to get people back into their homes and back to normal, but also says it's tough to see the widespread devastation day in and day out.
"It’s hard to see because a lot of this people don’t have flood insurance and it’s not something that is typically offered on the insurance policy so these people are having to come out of their own pocket for this it," Haney said. "It’s still tough but these houses can almost be unlivable without these house being properly dried out."
Unfortunately, the Harms family did not have flood insurance because they say their neighborhood is technically not in a floodplain. They did say that after going through this experience they will try to get flood insurance when they move back into their home.