FLOODED FAMILY TRIES TO FIND NORMALCY; `SOAP, WATER, PAINT CAN CURE A LOT OF ILLS'

Two years ago, Clara and James Probst lost their two daughters in a fire that badly burned James as he ran upstairs to try to save them. His tracheotomy scar is a result of all the smoke he inhaled.

Monday, he spoke in a customary wheeze about the losses the latest disaster the flood has visited upon Clara and him.

The Probsts' rent their four-room house at 1317 N. Water St. They had tried to sandbag, but could see the river was coming for their low-lying home.

"We knew it was a losing battle," said Delbert Walter, the Probsts' landlord.

Three weeks before the flood's Aug. 7 crest, the small creek that runs behind their frame house rose suddenly, leaving the Probsts' knee-deep in water.

Though they had moved out their furniture, 46-year-old James still had many miscellaneous items, including a brother's generator, stored in the basement.

"It took us by surprise," said James, who has had limited sight since birth.

Clara had taken her hearing aid out to take a shower that day and lost it in the flood. She has been unable to get it replaced.

"They (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) haven't been able to help with the hearing aid," James said.

Fortunately, Walter had a spare mobile home to rent them, and the American Red Cross and FEMA in combination have provided three months' rent money.

When they returned to the house as the water receded, the Probsts found a long black snake in their kitchen and a house that won't be livable for months.

Walter is one of the few property owners in the neighborhood who had flood insurance. He and the Probsts already have given the house a good cleaning, and they're applying a primer called Kilz that seals damaged plaster.

"Soap and water and paint can cure a lot of ills," Walter said.

But the floors will have to be redecked, and much work remains to be done.

"We're going to do our best," James said of moving back in. "We're all working together."

Down the street at 1407 N. Water, retirees Virgie and Woody Sadler were addressing letters to volunteers who helped them save their home. Of all the houses in the neighborhood threatened by the flood, the Sadlers' seems to have come the farthest back toward normalcy.

The 10,000 sandbags are gone, thanks to more volunteers, and the yard is smoothly packed with new dirt.

With the help of family members, the Sadlers staged a 24-hour pumping operation for 10 days in a row during the peak of the flooding. It paid off.

"We have no structural damage," Woody says.

They also saved their furnace, thanks to a pump installed in the crawl space underneath the house.

Woody is anxious about the astounding utility bill he knows is on the way, but they've received some unexpected financial help. Baptist congregations in Steele, Marquand and Centerville, Texas, sent sizable donations to flood victims care-of the Sadlers' own church, Red Star Baptist.

"If it hadn't been for friends, relatives and churches I don't know what we would have done," Virgie said.

Some of the volunteers the Sadlers are trying to thank are people they don't even know. Like the woman, a doctor's wife, who brought them food and offered to do their laundry.

Virgie still has dreams about sandbags. "At our age it's hard to forget it," she said.

"... We still keep a light burning."