LOWELL, Mich. – The first chance Rocky Eickhoff had to see what the flood did to his daughter’s house on Division Street in Lowell was Wednesday, after the river receded slightly.
“The water was up to this high,” said Eickhoff putting his hand more than three feet in the air, up against the house. “All the way around the whole house.”
Now that the Grand River has pulled back, Eickhott has a lot of cleaning up to do.
“We got to get in there to rip the drywall up, just to stop the moisture from going up the walls and everything,” he said.
For this grandfather, there was little time to enjoy the sunny Spring day.
Looking at the weather forecast for the weekend, one could assume that it would help those cleaning up from flood damage.
Eickhoff said it just means they will have to work faster, mold and other dangerous bacteria can spread rapidly in a wet warm climate.
Barely anything touched by the flood waters from the Grand River is salvageable.
With little grandchildren living in the home, Eickhoff said has to be thorough, “You don’t want to take a chance. So what you try to do is prevent from getting that stuff on it, yeah scrub everything.”
An expensive and time consuming prospect, but one that is needed if life is get back to normal for his children and grandchildren.
“They are going to be out of the house for I’d say up to six months easy, they are going to have to be into apartments,” said Eickhoff.
In the meantime, the community is working together so no one is left to clean up alone.
