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A Flood Story: The Yates Family

Posted on 21. Sep, 2010 by admin in 2008 Flood, Stories

By Cari Cooney

As with many people facing flood waters in 2008 in Iowa, they felt it would never top the flooding of 1993.  We’ve heard this a lot from those who have had devastating waters destroy their homes, businesses and beloved items.  William Yates was a longtime resident of Palo, a small town northeast of Cedar Rapids.  He had experienced the floods of 1993 and was ready to face them once again.  His daughter Abbey, her twin sister and older sister had grown up in that ranch home that sat on three lots.  With a creek to the left and right and a river running nearby, they were about to face unbelievable amounts of water.

Before they decided to evacuate, they had moved everything up off the floor and to higher ground within the house, expecting the floodwaters to only infiltrate the basement.  Once the water surrounded the house, William Yates told his children that it was time to leave.  The four inches of water that came into the basement in 1993 had multiplied to four feet of water on the main level of that ranch.  When the river crested, Abbey and her twin sister took a boat to see what could be saved.  They parked their boat right underneath the awning of the home.  The women got into the water and went into the home to find only a handful of pictures on walls and some clothing placed up high.  They took what they could and left.

Abbey’s childhood home was completely destroyed.  Everything was lost in the flooding besides the few items that they took with them on the boat.  All of the items in the garage and shed were also destroyed.  Once the Yates’ were allowed to enter to home after the waters had receded, the mold had already set in.  The summer heat and humidity had increased the mold growth, leaving a terrible stench.

As Abbey Yates said “The smell was the worst thing I have ever had to deal with.”  Mud covered the house and you could see the water lines both inside and outside.  The basement windows had busted out and three feet of water still remained, along with fish and other animals that were living down there.  Everything that once had life to it was now brown, washed away and caked with mud.  “To know all you have is gone and there is nothing anyone can do to help is the worst feeling in the world.-” Abbey stated.

FEMA provided some assistance, but it wasn’t anywhere close to how much had been lost.  The Salvation Army and the American Red Cross were quick to offer their volunteer services and the Yates family is so grateful for their help.

With nothing left to do but start over, that is exactly what they did.  They decided to gut the house and put it on the market.  They sold the house, but decided to keep the two additional lots in the family and the sisters handle the upkeep of the land.  It was after all, where this family had grown up and been part of a wonderful community of people who cared for each other.  When all of this happened, William had been in his third year of battling cancer.

On March 31st, 2009, William Yates’ left this earth after a courageous fight.  He was a man well known in Palo for being someone to count on; a man who would go to great lengths to help his friends and neighbors.  The girls promised him before his passing that they would never reside in a flood zone.  He is greatly missed by his family and the community of Palo, where he had lived his entire life.