Flood Waters Recede

From the Capital-Journal:
ROSSVILLE — Debris covered streets and yards in north Rossville Saturday morning as flood waters receded and residents cleaned up.
George Sullivan, 90, sat comfortably in the shade just a few yards from where the overflowing Cross Creek washed up rotting corn stock and other refuse. When waters started surrounding his home Friday he said he wasn’t worried. This is the 17th flood since he and his wife. Marie, moved to their home on East Pottawatomie Street in 1957.
“Water don’t bother us,” he said.
The basement flooded, but Sullivan said that happens every time, so he stopped storing things down there. Several members of his family, including his daughter Janice Craven, raked debris in his back yard. Her parents shouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up at their age, Craven said, so she and her husband drove up in the morning from the Edgerton area.
“This isn’t the worst we’ve had,” she said leaning on a pitch fork.
A blanket of corn stock floated on the few inches of standing water between Sullivan’s house and his neighbor’s. Over there, Todd and Kelly Brown, along with about a dozen friends and neighbors cleaned a much bigger mess.
“I think we took the brunt of it for the rest of the town,” Kelly said hosing off her back patio,
A few feet away, a crew worked pushing several inches of water out their detached garage as a pump ran nearby. The yard and driveway looked like a small lake. Todd and others slushed back and forth trying to push the swamp into the ditch.
With arrival of second pump, it was time to dry out the basement.
“I haven’t looked in their yet, not sure I want to,” Todd said to his wife.
Inside, a freezer and some shelves floated in several feet of murky water. This year’s flood isn’t as bad as 2005’s, Todd said, but that doesn’t matter. The clean up will be about the same.
The family watched Friday afternoon as floodwater from Cross Creek flowed south along Pearl Street toward their home. They hurried to pack up as much from the garage and basement as they could, but didn’t use sand bags. In 2005 when their basement flooded the sand bags made it worse, Kelly said.
“We knew it was coming, but there wasn’t much we could do,” she said. “I’m shocked it receded so fast.”
Earlier in the morning, Alex Bird, a recent Rossville Junior-Senior High graduate, and some friends dumped out sandbags at a sand volleyball court near the school. The day before, he and some other students drove around town delivering sandbags to people who waved their truck down. By noon Saturday, he was over at the Brown’s house helping clean up. Bird said he was glad to see the town come together to help each other.
“It’s a pretty cool thing, you know, small town love,” he said.
Some parts of Shawnee County saw a reprieve from rain Friday into Saturday morning after heavy rain earlier in the week caused the Rossville flooding.
As of 8:45 a.m. gauges at Philip Billard Municipal Airport had only a trace of rain as most of the overnight rain stayed in the northeast part of the county, National Weather Service meteorologist Emily Heller said.
Rossville, where flooding affected at least 40 homes Friday evening, received just one-quarter of an inch based on radar estimates, she said. At 7:30 Saturday morning Cross Creek was at 20.9 feet. That is down from 21.36 feet the National Weather Service reported at 5:30 p.m. Friday. Cross Creek is at flood stage at 25 feet.
“We had a period to dry out yesterday, but we are still very wet and the rivers are very full so any additional rain could be a concern.” she said.
Morning thunderstorms should move out of the area before noon, but Shawnee County will remain under a flash flood watch until 4 p.m. Around 3 p.m. storms may form in the area the could bring local heavy rain, Hiller said. In the evening and overnight Saturday, storms in Nebraska could move into northern Kansas.
Severe weather is likely Sunday afternoon and evening as another round of thunderstorms moves into the area, Heller said.
The Kansas River at Topeka was at 20.9 feet as of 7:30 a.m. Flood stage is 26 feet.
With more rain forecasted for Saturday night and Sunday, Todd said he was concerned, not for his own house, but for the rest of town.
“It seems like everyone got really lucky,” he said. “If it rains more it might get worse and I don’t want it to get worse.”