INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — An Independence family believes it will take days before the water in their home completely drains.
Standing in knee deep water, Alex Tabora couldn’t believe his newly remodeled basement on Stone Street looked more like an underground pool Thursday evening.
“It’s a lot of gallons of water here,” the married father of three said. “Everything is destroyed.”
Tabora said water started pouring into the lower level of his home around 9 a.m. The space, that his sister and her children also call home, is basically a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, kitchen and bathroom.
Tabora estimates he spent $10,000 in renovations before Thursday’s flooding. He just completed the renovations four months ago.
“When this start, I tried to take all the water out so we could save the place,” he said. “But now it’s just — everything, the work and money you save to do all this is gone.”
Tabora said this isn’t the first time they’ve had problems with water runoff, but it’s always been about 3 inches, not 3 feet.
“Nobody seen this before. It’s bad,” he said.
He’s using sump pumps to drain the water but is afraid most of the items still inside, including household appliances, won’t be salvageable.
“We’re just going to take the water, start cleaning, take it apart again, just leave it like an empty basement,” Tabora said.