MISSOURI VALLEY, IOWA (KMTV) — While much of the town of Missouri Valley avoided the flood, the houses south of the train tracks took in multiple feet of water.
Ronda Mauseth left her home of 35 years last Wednesday when it became apparent the flood waters would get to her house. She came back Sunday to devastation.
“It just totaled everything, everything is mud…it’s just ruined,” says Mauseth.
Now she’s left picking up the pieces of her most precious items.
“I lost my dad’s bible, you just, you just can’t replace that stuff,” says Mauseth.
Down the road this entire storage facility took in over two feet of water.
Rose Phillips had a house worth of stuff inside her unit after moving into an RV last year.
She now has to toss items worth thousands of dollars.
“I’m a bit of a struggling person, a struggling veteran, trying to make it month to month,” says Phillips.
But like Ronda, her mind is on the personal items, she can never get back.
“Losing my mom’s pictures. I grew up my entire life looking at these pictures, daydreaming about the perfect life, was in those pictures and losing those pictures is going to be the one thing that breaks my heart,” says Mauseth.
Many in Missouri Valley are wondering what they’re going to do next. After living there her whole life, Ronda is now looking to move on.
“We’re going to leave. We can’t. I can’t live here..I can’t do this again next year,” says Mauseth.
The home of Ronda’s son was also destroyed by the flood. Both of them stayed with family in Council Bluffs, which housed 18 people during the flood.
