‘You Just Never Think It Will Happen to You’
OLIVEHURST, Calif. — The first thought that passed through Robin Midkiff’s mind as she entered her flood-ravaged home was, she admits, a ludicrous one.
“I just thought: My God, I can’t let anyone see my house this way,†said Midkiff, 33. “This is not the way I keep my house. It looked like a giant washing machine had just churned everything up.â€
The Midkiffs were visibly shaken Tuesday as they picked through the rubble of their belongings, looking for something salvageable.
“We’ve made it through hard times before, and we will survive this too,†said Douglas Midkiff, Robin’s 35-year-old husband. But his voice wobbled as he spoke.
Inexplicably, the flood water that reached a height of five feet in each room of the three-bedroom home on Buttercup Lane had spared the family Christmas tree. It stood above the wreckage that once was the family’s living room, still decorated with stars and a construction paper chain the two Midkiff children had made.
It was the only bright spot for the Midkiffs, who didn’t take out flood insurance when they bought their home 18 months ago on this flood plain between the towns of Olivehurst and Linda. Also lost was Douglas Midkiff’s auto-painting shop in the family garage, complete with tools, brushes and paints.
“We were told that our area didn’t flood,†Robin Midkiff said, her face drawn with worry and fatigue.
In fact, the entire tract of about two dozen modest single-story homes was flooded after a levee broke on the Feather River last Thursday night. Their neighborhood became part of a 25-square-mile area of southwest Yuba County that was submerged under several feet of water. About 500 homes were badly damaged or destroyed in the area, according to the Yuba County Office of Emergency Services.
An elderly man, whose name has not been released by authorities, was found dead near the levee break Monday and four people were still missing from homes near the rupture, said Yuba County Undersheriff Gary Finch.
Deep standing water was preventing rescue workers Tuesday from reaching some of the homes closest to the levee that rapidly filled to their rafters when the levee burst, Finch said. Reported missing were Marian Anderson, 55, Claire Royal, 75, and a couple, Donald and Theresa Riley, he said.
“People just didn’t have time to get out,†Finch said. “There may be others down there that we just don’t know about. There may be people we never find.â€
Of the Midkiffs’ neighbors, little more than half were thought to have flood insurance, although the neighborhood flooded in 1986 when a levee on the Yuba River, a tributary of the Feather, ruptured during heavy rains.
One of the lucky ones was Connie Hudgins. She and her husband, Harold, who live a half-block from the Midkiffs, have flood insurance. So does the Hudginses’ daughter and her husband, who live one street over on Butterfly Lane.
“I’m a first-time disaster victim,†said Hudgins grimly, as she stood on the sodden carpeting of her living room. “We lost everything.â€
Ken Warner, 33, was helping his parents-in-law muck out their house Monday afternoon, and congratulating himself for buying flood insurance when he purchased his Butterfly Lane home three years ago.
“You just never think it will happen to you,†said Warner, 33, a cheerful, compact man who insisted Monday that he was feeling all right despite the loss of nearly all his personal possessions. “I have flood insurance, so I feel pretty good.â€
His wife, Warner said, was taking it harder. “She’s tore up. She’s really hurt bad,†he said. “Women take their house a lot more seriously then men do, I guess.â€
Warner said he figures he’ll have to replace kitchen cabinets, flooring, appliances, most of his furniture, three televisions and several stereos. Walls will have to be stripped from the ground to about 18 inches above the high-water mark in each room of his three-bedroom home.
The Warners moved outside Olivehurst three years ago to have a little more room, Warner said. An electrician who commutes an hour each way to Sacramento, Warner was thrilled to find a house on an acre of land that he could afford. Just to be on the safe side, he opted to spend an extra $200 a year for flood insurance.
Down the street, Charlie Hutridge had already stripped his home of carpeting--brand-new, with a “lifetime†pad--and piled most of his ruined furniture and appliances on the still-flooded front lawn. His wife was in town, making telephone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and anyone else who might be able to help.
He has one regret, Hutridge said. He listened to his insurance agent when they bought the house five years ago, and didn’t take out flood insurance.
“You believe what they tell you,†Hutridge said. “That the flood of 1986 was a 100-year flood. That flood insurance wasn’t necessary.â€
Only once, showing a reporter through the house, did Hutridge lose his composure. “This upset the wife the most,†he said softly, stroking the split wood of a china cabinet. “Her grandfather made that for her.†Flood waters had warped and splintered the wood beyond repair.
As bad as things were on Buttercup and Butterfly lanes Tuesday, they were worse still farther south, in the prestigious neighborhoods edging the Plumas Lake Golf Club. Homes there go for $200,000 and more--considered a high price in a county with a 12% unemployment rate.
The country club homes were all still under water Tuesday. A specially trained swift-water rescue team of firefighters from the city of Los Angeles and lifeguards from San Diego were searching for the four missing people and rescuing dozens of stranded animals.
FEMA officials began fanning out through the damaged areas on Tuesday to make initial assessments, said Bill Harris, spokesman for Yuba County’s Office of Emergency Services. Harris said the county has not begun to estimate its losses.
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