CEDAR FALLS - Bruce Heidt heard a yell from upstairs telling him to get out of the basement.

He looked over and saw what he described as a waterfall bursting through the wall of his wife's basement.

Water licked at his heels as he sprinted up the staircase in the nick of time. But while he avoided personal harm, the house was the subject to a painful lesson in physics.

"I knew it was going to flood, but I didn't expect this," Heidt said while examining the hole where the foundation of the house once stood.

As the floodwater collected against the side of the house at 1016 Longview St. Tuesday, the pressure on the wall built up until the structure could no longer support the weight.

"My wife's lived here for 18 years," said Heidt, who was married to Julie in February.

Once the water penetrated the basement, the house filled to the brim with flood water. A watermark in the living room showed how the flood water rose to nearly three feet from the floor.

Everything below the watermark was covered with a layer of filthy, dark-brown mud. The floorboards were warped. The drawers under Julie's bed were still filled with water. About the only thing that was not a complete loss was a sign hanging over a window in the living room that reads, "Live well; Laugh often; Love much" - perhaps the only way the Heidts can respond after the disaster.

"[Julie's] insurance company made her get flood insurance not that long ago," Heidt said. "I guess it's a good thing they did."

One block closer to the river, Scott Smith smoked a cigarette while waiting for the tenant of the trailer he owns at 1002 Clair Street to return.

Clair Street was the closest residential area to the river, and even though the trailer was elevated several feet off the ground, water still inundated the inside.

"She didn't get anything out," Smith said of the tenant. "Now I gotta get the carpets out and see what's left of the floor."

Smith said at least six feet of standing water penetrated the trailer. Flood waters were still covering the yard on the side nearest the river, and a shed was floating on its side just inside the fence line.

"I guess the fence must have kept it in the yard," speculated Smith. "But one just like it down the block floated away."

Smith said he had some flood insurance but added that he was not sure how much it would cover. He also said he was planning to apply online with the Federal Emergency Management Agency but was not sure how the process would work.

"I guess you just have to keep smiling, because what else can you do?" Smith said. "A lot of people in this area have house insurance and no flood insurance. They may have been paying for 20 or 30 years on those houses, and now they will lose all it all."

Contact Drew Andersen at

(319) 291-1418 or

drew.andersen@wcfcourier.com.