Breaking News Story-June 30 storms

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$1.25 | 159TH YEAR, NUMBER 27 | JONES COUNTY, IOWA | THURSDAY, July 3, 2014 Jones County’s Newspaper

Hometown newspaper of Ken and Cinda Petrick of Anamosa

Wild timeThe J & P Open House Rally expanded to three days this year, opening with a Hairball concert on Friday night. Thou-sands flocked to the event.

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Grand openingThe Starlighters Theatre will hold a grand opening on July 10 to celebrate the new building and thank those who helped it open.

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ANAMOSA

new lifeThe old Anamosa sewer plant is getting a new life. It will be used to store sand and salt and other materi-als for city street crews.

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ANAMOSA

90th anniversaryThe Anamosa Rotary Club celebrated its 90th an-niversary with a dinner at Fawn Creek Country Club on June 24.

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ANAMOSA

new towerThe new Anamosa water tower was filled with water on June 27, a multi-day process that included en-suring the water quality.

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ANAMOSA

BUSINESS DIRECTORY ....... A8-9

CLASSIFIEDS ..................... B5-7

HELP WANTED .................... B5-7

LEGALS ..................................A7

LIFESTYLES ........................ A5-6

OBITUARIES ...........................A6

NEWS .....................A1-4, A7-10

REAL ESTATE ...................... B5-7

SPORTS ............................. B1-5

THE BACK PAGE .................... B8

INDEX

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JiM JoHnSon/JOURNAL-EUREKA

Ranelle Schroder wades through floodwaters as she sandbags her Olin home. Helping are neighbors Chris Sievertsen and Isaac Williams.

By L.C. GrafStaff Writer Tuesday morning dawned with bright blue skies, a contrast with the stormy weather of Sun-day night and Monday. The magnitude of the devasta-tion was clear as residents began cleaning up from wind, rain and floods that hit Jones County over a 24-hour period. Residents in Olin, Oxford Junction, Morley and Wyoming experienced flash flooding af-ter severe thunderstorms rolled through from Sunday into Mon-day. The Jones County Board of Su-pervisors declared the high winds and flooding from county’s creeks and streams a disaster Tuesday morning. Residents are encour-aged to report any damage to their city leaders. Each town was given approximately 50 clean-up kits from the American Red Cross that include a mop, soap and disinfectant, gloves, goggles and more to help remove mud and water from their homes. For many residents, the flood-ing Sunday evening came as a

surprise. Kathy Tasker, a Wyoming resi-dent, was shampooing the car-pets of Wyoming Drug & Variety. The entranceway of the store, which slopes downward, was marked by the level of mud that had seeped under the door. Ac-cording to Tasker, the front and back entrances of the store had been soaked with water from the flooded Bear Creek, which runs

nearly a block west of her store. “I’ve been here 17 years, and I’ve never had water in this place,” Tasker said. “The inches came in so fast, we were just sopped. Peo-ple who had never had water in their basement, had three to four feet of water.” Holly Lane, owner of Wyo-ming’s Town Supermarket, has lived in the area her entire life. Her parents owned the market

before her, and in her 57 years, she said, she has never seen wa-ter in the store. Although she did not know how high the water was within the store, other residents reported seeing 6 inches up the market’s door. “I came in at 1:30 in the morn-ing and went home at 8:30. We just started sucking it up and mopping, it was an all-night thing, and we’re still doing it,” Lane said. “We still haven’t finished the back room.” Fire trucks had come by Wyo-ming’s main street and used high-powered water to clean mud off the streets. Lane said that if it was not for the Wyoming community, she would have still been working on cleaning the store Tuesday af-ternoon. According to Lane, vol-unteers came in and “moved stuff and toted stuff and pulled stuff all off the floor.” “It’s a great little community, they’ve always been there for me,” Lane said. “I didn’t lose much. Thank God, I didn’t lose much.” Basement flooding was the main concern for residents in

‘I can’t believe how fast it came up’Residents begin massive cleanup after multiple storms hammer Jones County


A kayaker paddles past a submerged mini van at the intersection of Second and Resident streets in Olin on Monday.


Residents check out a downed tree on South Cleveland Street in Anamosa.

By roBerT Crozier

anD JiM JoHnSonStaff Writers

ANAMOSA A massive storm packing 80 mph winds and torrential rain slammed Anamosa just after 3 p.m. on Monday, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. The storm – combined with an earlier storm Sunday night – downed 180-200 trees, 40-50 of

those uprooted. About 300 base-ments were flooded. Johnson said 6-8 inches of rain fell in the last 48 hours, and in some areas in the county up to 10 inches fell. About 30 homes had trees fall on them, according to City Ad-ministrator Alan Johnson. “It’s really widespread and ex-tensive,” he said.

80 mph winds wreakhavoc in Anamosa

SEE ANAMOSA | PAGE A2

SEE FLOOD | PAGE A4

The rainwater flooded hundreds of basements in town, according to John-son. “When it comes that fast and that hard, it just has nowhere to go,” he said. Residents had to cope with darkened houses as the falling trees took a toll on power lines in the city. Alliant Energy spokes-man Justin Foss said 870 homes were still without power as of 2 p.m. Tues-day. He expected most of those to be restored later in the day and the remain-der by the end of the day on Wednesday. “We know Anamosa was hit pretty hard,” Foss said, adding that many of the outages were small pockets of homes where a tree took down the line. “It’s very tedious.” Foss did not have the number of Anamosa cus-

tomers without power at the peak of the storm, but he said it was probably most of the town. Many customers had service restored about 10:30 p.m. Monday, just over seven hours after power was lost. The winds blew from west to east, dropping trees across most of the city’s north-south streets. As the storm subsided about 4 p.m., residents with chainsaws and city crews quickly began re-moving debris. Most streets were open by early evening. Jones County Sher-iff Greg Graver said the Monday afternoon storm hit between Stone City and Anamosa hard. It then skipped several miles and again left a 1½-mile swath of destruction along County Road E-17, through Scotch Grove and

on to the county line. Graver was sitting in his truck on E-17 east of Scotch Grove where he rode out the storm. He estimated the winds between 75 and 80 mph, sustained for about five minutes. The video on his truck recorded the storm as it blew through. “It was a prolonged event,” Graver said. Corn stalks along E-17 were flattened by the winds, and trees toppled in Scotch Grove, damag-ing several of the former Balster’s buildings where for 137 years, the Balster family had a variety of en-terprises in Scotch Grove. In Anamosa, Johnson had specific instructions for Anamosa residents with tree branches in their yards. “They have to cut them up fairly short and put them by the curb, and

eventually the city will pick them up,” Johnson said. Anamosa residents could also take the branches to the tree dump by the wastewater plant themselves but that area is currently closed due to flooding, Johnson said. Residents received help from a crew of about eight from Weber Stone who brought a wood chipper and chainsaws Tuesday to clear downed trees. The Wapsipinicon River is expected to crest slightly higher than 2008 levels Thursday morning, but Johnson said the city’s two new levees should hold the water back. “We’re hoping that we’ll be OK,” Johnson said. “There will be some low-level flooding, I’m sure.” Anamosa city workers have already filled in the walkthrough space near Dillon Bridge, and the pe-destrian bridge is closed until further notice, John-son said. The Anamosa State Penitentiary had wind damage like the rest of town that took down trees and damaged roofs, ac-cording to Warden John Fayram. The power plant roof was damaged and leaking when prison offi-cials shut down the boiler system Monday night. Winds tore a gaping hole in the prison roof. “The population has handled it well,” Fayram said. “[But] it got awful windy around here.”

NEWSPAGE A2 | THURSDAY, JUlY 3, 2014 JOURNAl-EUREKA

Anamosa Aqua CourtFor the past 56 years the Anamosa Aqua Court has been a refreshing alternative to the hot summers of

eastern Iowa. The original pool was built in 1958 and demolished in the fall of 1990. The current facility

is celebrating it’s 24th year of service to the community. This year’s managers include Alea

Baftiri and Tyler Laing. They are assisted by Jacob Maruga, Taylor Timp and Amanda Thurm.

POOLSIDE PICNICSaturday, August 2 • 6 p.m.

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POOL PICNIC CREW SUMMER PARK CREW

SNACK SHACK CREWEnjoy a delicious treat at the Aqua Court’s

Concession Stand under the direction of Darcy Jacobs.

Jones County’s Newspaper

The advertising deadline for the July 8 Town Crier is Thursday, July 3 at 11 a.m.

The Journal-Eureka office will be closed on

Friday, July 4 so our employees can enjoy the Fourth of July holiday

with their families.

Advertisers: Rebecca Vernon’s sal-ary as Anamosa’s library director is $32,000 per year. A story in the June 19 edition of the Journal-Eureka contained an in-correct salary.

FOR THE RECORD

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AnAmOsA/CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

JIM JOHNSON/JOURNAl-EUREKA

Anamosa firefigthers were on North Garnavillo where an up-rooted tree pulled up a natural gas line.


Bill Carlson wields a chainsaw to cut up a downed tree on South Garnavillo Street Monday.


A pickup truck was surrounded by water when Buffalo Creek jumped its banks early Monday morning.

NEWSJOURNAL-EUREKA THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2014 | PAGE A3

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ANAMOSA The Anamosa Rotary Club members decided to postpone the annual Fourth of July fireworks until Sunday, Aug. 31, with a rain date of Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 1. The decision came af-ter surveying the soggy football field, flooded concessions booth and the new announcer’s press box laying on the ground at the football stadium, It was a quick call to postpone all the festivi-ties. Club members briefly discussed two other sites, but both proved to be sog-gy alternatives. The 20-30 minute fire-works show – with $1,000 more fireworks than last year – will be blasted off to patriotic music Aug. 31 with all the planned food, drink and Dairy Queen concessions plus the flag retirement ceremony. Oxford Junction’s Fourth of July events will be moved to the Oxford Junction business district and fire station due to flooding surrounding the Legionnaire ballroom and

submerging the adjacent park. Games, parade, din-ner and a highly anticipat-ed fireworks show will be held. The weigh-in for the kids tractor pull is at 9 a.m., with the pull to fol-low. The chapter will sponsor a BB gun shoot, basketball shoot, football throw, Frisbee toss and other games. Junction For Oppor-tunities will host a food stand during this time, featuring walking tacos, hot dogs and drinks. The Oxford Junction Volun-teer Fire Department will host a kids’ water ball fight. The fire department will host rides on its trucks, and firefighters will have a lunch stand at the fire station. Lineup for the parade will start at 3 p.m. at the elementary school. The parade, sponsored by the American Legion Auxilia-ry, Wapsie Unit, will travel through the business dis-trict starting at 4 p.m. The grand marshals are Jim and Donna Schewe.

The park board will sponsor a chicken supper at the fire station from 5-7:30 p.m. The cost will be $8.50 for adults; $6 for children ages 6-12; and $3 for preschool children. The Oxford Happy Hustlers 4-H Club will host a cake walk, and the Oxford Livewires 4-H Club will have a lemonade stand. A 12-gauge Winchester gun donated by Wapsie Chapter of Whitetails or $250 in cash will be raffled

with the proceeds to go-ing to the fireworks funds. Tickets are available at Schakey’s Place. A drawing will be held for an iPad or a two-night stay for up to six guests at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells. Tickets are one for $5 or six for $25. Winner need not be present. The proceeds will go toward the installation of a ball diamond east of the Midland Elementary School. The American Legion,

Wapsie Post will be in charge of the flag-raising ceremony honoring local veterans. The fireworks display will be held at dusk, spon-sored by the Wapsie Post and set off by members of the fire department. All of Monticello’s Fourth of July celebrations are on schedule, accord-ing to Chamber Director Barbara Hoffman. A 6:30 a.m. firefighters’ breakfast will be held at the Berndes Center with a parade at 11

a.m. A beer garden and kids’ activities at the fair-grounds are planned for 1 p.m. The Bill Riley Talent Search will be held at the Berndes Center from 2-6 p.m. with music by the “Jammers” from 7-10 p.m. and fireworks at dusk.

Storms change plans for Fourth of JulyAnamosa fireworks postponed;Monticello, OJ events to proceed

JIM JOHNSON/JOURNAL-EUREKA

The Legionnaire Ballroom in Oxford Junction is surrounded by water, which flooded the adjacent park, forcing organizers to move many of the Fourth of July activities downtown.

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ROBERT CROZIER/JOURNAL-EUREKA

First District Congressman Bruce Braley talks with Anamosa City Administrator Alan Johnson about the damage the city sustained in the storm Monday afternoon.

By ROBERT CROZIERStaff Writer

ANAMOSA Anamosa City Ad-ministrator Alan Johnson took Congressman Bruce Braley on a driving tour of the damage from the weekend’s storms Tuesday morning. They looked at downed trees, saw bricks that fell off a business downtown and talked to one local business owner. Jones County has al-ready been declared a di-saster area by county and state officials, and it may be declared a federal di-saster area as well, accord-ing to Braley. “Right now we’re in the assessment stage,” Braley said, adding that he and his staffers will work with local officials to docu-ment the damage to see if it qualifies as a federal disaster. Iowa Gov. Terry Br-anstad came to Anamosa

later in the day. “I’ve made the disaster designation here,” Bran-stad said. The state disaster dec-laration enables state agencies to be called upon to assist. For example, the Department of Natural Resources may be called upon to suspend its rules prohibiting burning so that Anamosa can dispose of large amounts of tree brush. Branstad said he also plans to designate the storm a disaster for in-dividuals, enabling low-income people to apply through the Department of Human Services for up to $5,000 of disaster assis-tance. If the damage across the state exceeds $4.2 mil-lion, then the state can request federal disaster designation, according to Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

Director Mark Schouten . “There’s a pretty good chance that will happen just based on eyeballing,” Branstad said. Jones County Emer-gency Management Coor-dinator Brenda Leonard is optimistic about the fed-eral disaster declaration. “I can’t see us not hit-ting the numbers, with the damage across the state, for a presidential [disas-ter declaration],” Leon-ard said. “[But] there’s no guarantee.” Johnson escorted Bra-ley into Family Foods to talk to Family Foods Man-ager Duane Mosser. “It was a pretty rough day,” Mosser told Braley. “We lost a dumpster full of product … all of our ice cream that was out.” Braley said residents should keep any receipts associated with cleaning up from the storms in case they become eligible for federal dollars.

City, county applying forfederal storm assistance

NEWSPAGE A4 | THURSDAY, JUlY 3, 2014 JOURNAl-EUREKA

By L.C. GrafStaff Writer

OLIN It’s 2 p.m. Monday, June 30, and Olin is sur-rounded by water. The usually small, Wal-nut Creek, has flooded. Two visible cars have wa-ter to the windows, sever-al other houses have water surrounding them. Mul-tiple houses have flooded basements. Water Street, West Main Street and West Sec-ond Street are all threat-ened by the creek. East Locust Street is flooding from the Wapsipinicon River. City Clerk and Trea-surer Jean McPherson is preparing for floods remi-niscent of 2008. Reports say half-dollar sized hail is coming from Linn Coun-

ty. “People are evacuat-ing, in the low lying areas, where it’s been flooded, the firemen have been evacuating folks whose only choice is by boat,” McPherson said. The river, she said, is rising steadily. Since the time she got started at 6:30 a.m, the water has risen at least five feet. A radio report warns of 80 mph winds headed to Olin within the hour. At 3:10 p.m. the wind blows, three minutes later, it starts to pour. Firemen go to the cor-ners of Olin, Allen Rix is one of them. On the north end of Highway 38, he watches the storm, reports the rainfall, the wind and visibility while watching for cloud rotation. On his

phone, Rix has a weather radar pulled up. He points to three purple triangles on his phone screen. “Those, right there, are rotations, it could mean tornadoes, but it shows where there is the pos-sibility of them touching down,” Rix said. “Right

now, we got one to the south, and one to the north of us.” The tornadoes don’t touch down, and the rain stops. The damage is min-imal, mostly a few branch-es and leaves, but nothing major like the night before and earlier in the day.

According to Olin resi-dent Barry Bodkin, it’s not so bad. Despite two feet of water in his basement, the flooding is different than the Flood of 2008. Here, Bodkin said, a friend’s shop down on Main Street has been flooded with 44 inches, elsewhere in the city it’s 38 inches. “Everything had water in it in ’08. I’ve lived in Olin all my life and that was our worst,” Bodkin said. “But now, our big-gest problem is that the electricity’s out, and we can’t pump water.” By 4:30 p.m., winds greater than 60 mph and heavy rain have hit Olin for the second time, but causing less damage. Fire-fighter Allen Rix goes to the sandlot with a dump truck. The lot’s entrance is

ankle deep in water. “And here they said it wasn’t under water!” Rix laughed. “Well, I think that’s underwater.” Four tractor-scoops of sand later, and Rix returns to 13 people – volunteers and firefighters – working on sandbags. Phil Rouse, a resident of Clarence, is one of the volunteers. He came to help a friend, he said, but he’ll help the whole town as long as they need him. “I got a big family, seven kids and eight grandkids with two more on the way. I preach to all of them, this is what the world is all about, help your neigh-bors and be good people,” Rouse said. “That’s my philosophy, and that’s why we’re here.”

‘Help your neighbors and be good people’


A stalled car and a trailer were submerged in floodwaters near downtown Olin on Monday.


Jesse and Xera Tubbs ride through floodwaters after checking on a neighbor’s house in Oxford Junction. Tubbs said his house was surrounded by water but dry except for a covered porch.

By rOBert CrOzIerStaff Writer

ANAMOSA The Jones County Board of Supervisors declared the weekend’s flooding and high winds a disaster at its meeting Tuesday morning after hearing a summary of the damage from county Emergency Manage-ment Coordinator Brenda Leonard. Leonard said the offi-cial declaration will open the county to resources available from the state, including pumps brought to Olin and Oxford Junc-tion. Residents should re-port any damage to their city leaders and contact their city leaders if they want to help with the cleanup, Leonard said. The flooding came from the county’s creeks and streams, according to Leonard. “I’m not really worried about river flooding,” she said. Walnut Creek, Big Bear Creek and Little Bear Creek all had record flood-ing following the heavy rains, Leonard said. Kitty Creek flooded as well, but it didn’t set a new record, she said. Most of the rain was

focused on the southern half of the county, she said. Olin, Morley, Monti-cello, Oxford Junction and Wyoming experienced flooding, and winds tore down trees in Wyoming and Anamosa, according to Leonard. Many houses in Olin and Wyoming that had never flooded before were inundated, according to Leonard. “I know people up on the hill [in Wyoming] had water,” she said. “My house flooded. Our neighbor’s house flooded.” “It’s kind of like wide-spread flash flooding,” Su-pervisor Keith Dirks said. “Amber had some unusual flooding, too.” “Nobody got killed,” Supervisor Joe Cruise said. “That’s the main thing.” But Langworthy resi-dents had to leave their homes Sunday night, ac-cording to Leonard. “We did have to do one rescue Sunday night between Langworthy and Monticello,” she said, re-ferring to a car that got stuck in rising waters. But there was a “tre-mendous amount of crop damage,” Cruise said. The windstorm was probably the worst part,

Leonard said. The second storm caused the wind damage, while the first storm caused the flood-ing. A representative from Olin told Gov. Terry Br-anstad that Olin has four families displaced by flooding, and Leonard said a few more families across the county are also displaced from the storm. The Red Cross re-sponded, too. “We brought in our emergency response vehi-cle and delivered cleanup kits,” Red Cross Volunteer Ann Opatz said. The Red Cross deliv-ered 50 kits to Anamosa, 50 to Olin and 50 to Wyo-ming, according to Opatz. Each kit includes cleanup supplies such as a mop, a broom, a squeegee and gloves. Red Cross volunteers will also conduct a dam-age assessment to deter-mine the area’s needs, Opatz said. “We’re fairly early in this,” she said. Authorities are not sure if there were any tor-nados in the county. The National Weather Service has not confirmed the presence of a tornado. But some wind damage near the Jackson County

border looked like it may have been from a tornado, according to Leonard. There were also some re-ports of rotation and a picture of what may have been a funnel cloud above the prison in Anamosa. National Weather Service officials are still investigating the reports of tornados, according to National Weather Ser-vice meteorologist David Cousins said. County roads took a beating. “There’s widespread washouts on the gravel roads, and dozens of bridges need minor re-pairs before they can be opened,” county Engineer Derek Snead said. According to a re-port Leonard showed the board, sections of the fol-lowing roads were closed due to the storm as of Tuesday morning: Lead Mine Road, River Road, Landis Road, X-64, X-75, 90th Avenue, Buffalo Road, 20th Street, Cherry Grove Road, 42nd Street, Jungletown Road and Central Park Road. Additionally, sections of White Oak Road and Buffalo Road were not officially closed, but they should be, according to the report.

Damage widespread across county

By rOBert CrOzIerStaff Writer County officials’ abil-ity to dispatch resources was diminished after high winds ripped the antenna off of the courthouse roof during the storms. Coun-ty dispatchers typically operate out of an office in the courthouse. Officials kept two dis-patchers in the court-house to answer 9-1-1 and landline calls, and they sent two dispatchers to a backup station at the secondary roads depart-ment. But they were in a pre-carious position when they were using the back-up system. “I’m just glad the wind path didn’t hit the Am-ber tower. If we lose that, we’re done,” Leonard said. “I think that’s one of the main things we’re going to have to look at because that could have been bad last night.” Internet and cellular communication also went down during the storm. U.S. Cellular spokesman Kevin Schuster said about six sites around Anamosa were out until about 2 a.m. Tuesday. MediaCom, the cable company that provides much of Ana-mosa’s Internet service, lost its power to the grid that provides cable service to the city, according to a customer service repre-sentative. Sheriff Greg Graver said the 9-1-1 system didn’t go out, but some people who needed help were unable to call from their end be-cause cell phones were out. The backup system at the secondary roads de-partment was connected to the dispatchers with a

CenturyLink landline that didn’t go down, Graver said. Anamosa City Hall typically communicates with city workers via cellphone, but they were using radios Tuesday because the cellphone service was out, City Administrator Alan Johnson said. Most of Anamosa lost electricity during the storm, according to Al-liant Energy spokesman Justin Foss. Only 870 people were still without power as of 2 p.m. Tues-day, he said. The outages affected rural Jones County too. “At our worst we had over 5,000 members with-out power,” Maquoketa Valley Rural Electric Co-operative CEO Jim Lau-zon said. Only 26 members didn’t have power as of Tuesday at 1 p.m., accord-ing to Lauzon. “We’ll have them this afternoon most likely,” Lauzon said. “There may be a few stragglers be-cause some roads are washed out and we can’t get there.” Foss said most Alliant customers should have service restored Tuesday with the remainder by the end of the day Wednes-day. The loss of cellular and Internet communication impacted the electric co-operative’s operation. Lauzon said his em-ployees typically use cell phones to talk to crews and call staff members to work, and they use the Internet to communicate with the trucks. “We just had to work without them,” Lauzon said. “So we did it the old way.”

Storm knocks outcommunicationsand utilities

FLOOD/CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

Morley, Coleen VanAn-twerp said that Morley is accustomed to periodic flooding, the speed of the water and loss of electric-ity for approximately 10 hours had a great impact on the town. VanAntwerp said that a majority of the town was affected by some type of water damage, in-cluding the fire station which had small puddles in the office. VanAntwerp said Morley saw more than 6½ inches by Monday after-noon.

Waters receded quickly in Morley and Wyoming and cleanup was well un-derway Tuesday. For Olin and Oxford Junction, however, clean-up efforts have to wait un-til the water subsides later in the week. Olin’s damage consist-ed of several houses sur-rounded by water, dam-age to basements, and by Tuesday afternoon, five visible cars stranded in substantial water. At least four residents were evacu-ated by boat.

“There’s a dozen or more homes that were impacted based on the floodwater, and the rain certainly didn’t help, but there wasn’t major wind damage,” City Clerk and Treasurer Jean McPher-son said. “We were with-out power until around 1:15 this morning, the lo-cal cable service is down, the telephone company’s equipment and some oth-er facilities have water in them.” Tammy Bachelder’s basement was flooded “up

to the top step,” she said. Water had started com-ing up the drain because the sump pumps were being used in other ar-eas like Wyoming, where more water was flowing in. Bachelder said that by 2:30 p.m. there was no electricity and that cell phone service was spotty Monday morning. “I thought it was safe. But then, West Second just flooded,” Bachelder said. “I had to move my son out of there and up-stairs.”

In Oxford Junction, the fire department also went door-to-door to inform residents of the impend-ing storm, but Fire Chief Denny Coon said many didn’t want to leave. “A lot of people were expecting it to a certain extent based on what was happening around us, but I think that what happened last night, we weren’t an-ticipating anything this quickly,” Coon said. “I’ve got water in my basement, lots of people do too.” Troy Schoon bought a

house on Webster Street in Wyoming and moved in over the weekend. Monday morning, he stood outside devas-tated as floodwaters from nearby Bear Creek slowly receded from his newly purchased property. His two trucks were ruined. His basement had 3 feet of water in it. “This was pretty much a river,” Schoon said point-ing to the driveway next to the house as a pump lifted water out of the base-ment.

National Weather Ser-vice meteorologist David Cousins predicted dry weather through Friday after possible isolated

showers and thunder-storms Tuesday evening. The chance of rain returns on Saturday and Sunday, he said.

Dry weather forecast for week

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Breaking News Story-June 30 storms