BUFFALO, Ill. (AP) - Ron Brougham, 59, didn’t know where to start.
It was July and, sitting on a bench outside the converted doctor’s office he calls home in Buffalo, he stared at the big pile of debris in his yard.
Before unprecedented flooding on the Mississippi River last spring, that debris had been the drywall, insulation, flooring, furniture and other accoutrements that made up his home. Although he and others had sandbagged his house just off Front Street, they finally conceded it to the rising river.
Brougham found temporary housing and, in June, a group of volunteers from a Baptist church in Kentucky cleaned out his home, removing all the drywall and insulation from four feet down and hauling it and everything else out to the yard. The group also did mold remediation.
But then the debris just sat.
With his dog Chance, his Mountain Dew and his cigarettes, Brougham didn’t know where to turn, didn’t know how to start putting his home back together. He received some insurance money, but it was not enough to cover the work that was needed. Plus everyone was so busy.
Through a series of connections, Habitat for Humanity-Quad Cities got involved in late July, first by providing volunteers who loaded the debris pile in a Dumpster donated by Republic Companies, and then with the recovery work that is still going on, eight months after the river crested in early May.
While Habitat has been building new homes in the Quad-City area for 26 years, 2019 marked the first time the nonprofit organization got involved in flood recovery, receiving a $51,000 grant from the Quad Cities Community Foundation.
The goal was to help people who were left with recovery issues after all the insurance had been paid and earlier waves of volunteers had left, Kristi Crafton, executive director of Habitat, said.
The money was enough to hire a part-time staffer to direct recovery efforts and to buy materials and sub-contractor services to help eight families scattered among Buffalo, Davenport and Moline. These included families of low-income, senior citizens or people with disabilities, she said.
“We did the gaps,” Crafton explained. “We covered what other money didn’t pay for.”
In Brougham’s case, once the debris was removed, Habitat staffer Rebecca Ludin kept in touch on other needs. The first step was to have his home’s electrical system inspected and repaired and to have the ducts cleaned of muck.
“I had no idea on that,” Brougham said Thursday morning, before leaving home for his second shift job at the Kraft plant in Davenport. “I wouldn’t have known what to do. I sat on that bench,” he said, motioning to the outdoors, “looking at that pile (of debris).”
Habitat hired Blaze Restoration Inc., a Quad-Cities disaster recovery company, to install insulation and drywall where it had been cut away and to hang new kitchen cabinets and interior doors.
This past week and next, Ludin and Habitat volunteers are painting and installing new flooring.
Because he hasn’t replaced his bed, Brougham currently sleeps in a big brown recliner chair in his living room, a chair he got from his brother. Two blankets, including one with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, hang at the front windows to keep the morning sun out of his eyes.
About all that was saved from house was the furnace, which was elevated, and a stash of movie DVDs.
Brougham has already purchased a new refrigerator, washer and dryer, toilet and vanity with sink. He’s going to try to clean the mud-stained tub and shower surround.
He said he’s lived in the home about 13 years, and it’s been flooded twice before.
“We sandbagged the heck out of it, but the water kept comin’ up and comin’ up and pretty soon there weren’t no sandbags left,” he said about flood-fighting efforts last spring. “Nobody expected it to flood twice in a few months.”
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Source: The (Moline) Dispatch and Rock Island Argus, https://bit.ly/2t68Ftm
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