CAPE'S FLOOD BUYOUT PROGRAM PROGRESSES

Jesse Dunlop has lived in the 700 block of South Fountain Street all his 73 years. He intended to stay there until he died until the flood of 1993.

Water rose from the Mississippi River and covered his street while sewage backed up into his basement, Dunlop said. "It was in my furnace, my hot-water heater, and it stunk. It stunk for a long time."

"I lived here all my life, and it was the first time water had ever been there," he said.

Then it happened again in 1995.

Dunlop likes his home. "But I don't like high water," he said.

Now the city of Cape Girardeau is poised to buy his house and those of everyone on his block. Dunlop said he would sell out if the price is right.

The city could make an offer on his house as soon as two weeks from now, said Ken Eftink, development services coordinator for the city of Cape Girardeau.

In July, the City Council applied for $435,750 to buy and demolish 17 homes and buy 30 vacant lots that either flooded in 1993 or 1995, or were surrounded by water and made them inaccessible then. These homes were all a little higher than the 99 homes the State Emergency Management Agency approved of buying out earlier.

But the city of Cape Girardeau didn't get everything it asked for. The agency approved of $250,000 for purchasing all but four of the homes. Money for demolition will come from funds left over from demolishing other homes from earlier buyouts, Eftink said.

The four that weren't approved are the last four homes on Meadowbrook Drive.

The agency approved of buying out seven homes in the Red Star area and six in the 700 block of South Fountain Street.

The homes in the Meadowbrook area did not meet federal requirements for being cost effective, said Suzie Stonner of the State Emergency Management Agency, which administers the federal flood-relief funds in Missouri.

That doesn't bother Lennert Reisenbichler, who lives at 1218 Meadowbrook near Highway 74 and Interstate 55. In 1993 and 1995, water rose from the nearby Ramsey Creek and surrounded his house so he couldn't reach his home without a boat. Water seeped into his basement. Still Reisenbichler wants to stay.

"I've got a nice back yard, and I'm half way between Cape and work," he said as he watched workers tear down the house immediately to his south. Seven homes in his neighborhood qualified for an earlier buyout, but his home sits a little too high.

Reisenbichler works in Scott City.

He said he doesn't fear another flood. "What's the chance of that happening?" he said.

His neighbor to the north, Thomas Key, said he expects worse flooding in the future "with all the building going up by Wal-Mart." He expects Ramsey Creek to get higher from the runoff from all the new pavement there.

He said he would accept a buyout for the right price.

Key said that in 1993 he surrounded his house with sandbags, but water managed to seep into part of his house, damaging the drywall.

But the State Emergency Management Agency said his home doesn't qualify. Stonner said that if Key buys flood insurance, and his house gets flooded twice in 10 years and sustains damage costing almost half the value of his home, he will qualify for a future buyout.

Eftink said the city has already started getting title reports on the property and has lined up an appraiser.

After the city has finished the buyout, it must figure out what to do with the land. Eftink said the city might put a park in Red Star on the block bounded by Main, Water, Second and Third streets.