LEAVING THE RIVER BEHIND: RESIDENTS USE FLOOD BUYOUT PROGRAM TO MOVE TO HIGHER, DRIER GROUND

Above, many homes sit vacant along Third Street as waters rose around the homes. Below, sump pumps are indispensable for residents when the Mississippi River floods the Red Star area of Cape Girardeau.

Cheryl Johnson stood on her front porch at 1401 Water Street and talked about her yard being ruined by yearly flood waters.

When the Mississippi River rose last week, Henry Copeland didn't worry about it as much as he did two years ago.

Until last year, Copeland lived at 1418 Water St. in Cape Girardeau's Red Star neighborhood. At the height of the 1995 flood, 18 inches of water sat in his house. He had just rebuilt his home from the damage from the four feet of water that flooded his house in 1993.

"Now I live on Fountain on higher ground, away from that damn river," Copeland said.

He moved with help from a city-run program to buy out homeowners in floodplains. The state and federal governments funded the buyouts.

Cape Girardeau has 52 homes still on a list to be bought out, said Ken Eftink, who coordinates Cape Girardeau's buyout program. Copeland is among 90 homeowners already relocated, Eftink said.

He expects to close out seven other buyouts soon, he said.

But it doesn't always go smoothly.

Cheryl Johnson lives with her husband a few doors down from where Copeland used to live. "The city offered me $3,000 less than I owe," she said. "The city is being as helpful as they can be. How do they expect me to get the $3,000 when I live from paycheck to paycheck?"

She said her mortgageholder would not transfer her mortgage to a different house.

Further down Water Street is Penny Burnell. The house she shares with her husband sits on slightly higher ground. "It's never been flooded," Burnell said. "It's the aggravation of having the road flooded out and having to take a boat out to our vehicle.

Water seeps into her basement regularly. Anything she stores in the basement is elevated on pallets and she keeps a sump pump handy.

She needed it last week.

Burnell wants to move and her house is on the list, but the city hasn't gotten to it yet. When the buyout program began, the city listed the 142 homes in order, with the most flood-prone first.

As a result, the more vulnerable Smelterville on the south side of town is almost completely bought out. Only one resident remains. Most of Red Star is gone as well.

But being a little less flood-prone doesn't mean that Burnell will be able to sell her house without the buyout program. The seepage has caused structural damage. "Ain't nobody going to buy this house,' she said.

Being lower on the priority list means that most of her neighbors are gone. All the homes across the street are empty. But although the windows are bare, the paint hasn't begun to peel, so if you look quickly they seem to be occupied.

Since the federal government supplies three-quarters of the money for the buyouts, it sets the rules. The state of Missouri pays for the other quarter.

The idea is that instead of coming to the aid of people every time it floods, the government will help them once so they won't need help again, Eftink said.

Few people were interested in buyouts after the 1993 flood, Eftink said, because they viewed it as a unique event. But when the waters came back in 1995, many wanted to leave.

When Copeland bought the house on Water Street in 1953, "everyone who lived out there said they never did get flooded," Copeland said.

After the flood of 1993 moved his house off its foundation and ruined almost everything up to the ceiling, Copeland said he "practically rebuilt the whole house. I had everything in shipshape."

Under the program, the city offers homeowners a price equal to what it would have sold for before the 1995 flood, Eftink said. However, if the Federal Emergency Management Agency paid a homeowner anything for flood damage, and he or she cannot produce any receipts showing it was used for fixing up the house, that amount would be deducted from the offer. If the money went for fixing up the grounds, it couldn't be deducted, Eftink said.

Many of those contacted had difficulty finding a house they could buy even when bought out at the full value of their current homes.

For Copeland, the buyout program didn't cover the entire cost of his new house, so the city contacted the Salvation Army which helped him make up the difference, he said. Under that arrangement, Copeland can't sell his hous for six years.

"It's all right with me," he said. "At least I've got a house and it's dry."

Johnson wants to leave, but she'll miss the old neighborhood if she does.

"It's quiet," she said. "You don't get a lot of hellraisers around here."

Burnell likes the people as well, but she wouldn't move there again. "I'll never buy another house on a `Water Street' again," she said.