NPR recently highlighted disparities in how disaster assistance and mitigation efforts are distributed across the country. One community that’s dealt with its fair share of disaster is Metropolis, Illinois.
The lower Ohio River Valley has seen heavy rains in late winter two years in a row now.
Metropolis is one of those towns on the Ohio that has seen its fair share of emergencies lately.
"In the last twenty years we've had two major ice storms that were a hundred–year event, we've had two major floods that were hundred–year events, we've had tornadoes, wind shear storms, so we get pretty good at the emergencies. We don't take them lightly and they're all different."
Mayor Billy McDaniel has led his community through a lot of these emergencies during his nearly two decades as a city leader - and continues to learn from each one.
"It is unusual to have back to back years where we had pretty severe flooding along the Ohio." Derrick Sydner: National Weather Service
"Every seven to ten years, you're going to get one of those major events. So we've learned to deal with it, and we deal pretty well with it."
Meteorologist Derrick Sydner with the National Weather Service in Paducah says yearly flooding on the Ohio is not a common event.
"It is unusual to have back-to-back years where we have pretty severe flooding along the Ohio, last year we had some pretty extensive flooding on the Ohio especially up near the Evansville tri-state area and that continued all the way down to Cairo."
While water levels are starting to recede, it's taking longer than usual because of heavy rains draining to the Ohio River from upstream.
"Parts across west Kentucky, many locations have seen 10 to 12 inches of rain on their own, so all that water is draining north through the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, the Corps of Engineers is coordinating the releases from those lakes."
Managed water releases from lakes and reservoirs upstream keep the water from up the river coming down too fast and causing even more damage to towns like Metropolis.
Mayor McDaniel says having the water levels monitored and controlled is a big help to his city, but sometimes the river just can't be controlled.
"We have been affected by the water a lot more than last year. We probably have 25 to 50 homes that directly and indirectly have been affected by water and in saying that it is still not the devastation in '11 because there's two–foot difference."
"Water brings every piece of garbage in the world in and it takes none of it home with it." Mayor Billy McDaniel
That extra two feet in 2011 flooded a large number of homes. Learning from previous disasters, the city knew some areas along the river front were flood prone.
With the help and funding from FEMA and IEMA the city was able to be more prepared, and in some cases prevent damage.
"We actually bought out about 17 homes that had been directly affected by the water and was at least 50% or so damaged to the point where it made it very difficult for the people to put the money back into it to bring it up to the flood standard."
The city demolished the houses and won’t allow the construction of new homes in that area.
It's now a green space and McDaniel says this gives them 17 fewer flooded homes to deal with during flood events.
However, some residents like their house where it is.
"Some of them that actually get a little water and stuff like that, they don't want to leave, they're alright with sandbagging their homes, protecting it, but it takes a lot of help."
One of those residents is David Sexton, a lifelong Massac County resident. He's lived just north of 2nd street for the last 20 years. The river is about 20 feet away from his home.
"We didn't know just high it was going to come, some said for a while they thought it was going to crest and some it may possibly come up a little higher so we didn't really know what it was going to do."
The current water level reminds Sexton of protecting his home in 2011.
Once again, he's relying on sandbags to keep him and his home safe.
"We had the things across here, sandbags and at the time when we done, we didn't have a regular pump here so we got excess water coming off back here, that kind of runs underneath there, but we didn't get the extra flood water by putting the things across here."
Mayor McDaniel says there's also one big difference between now and 2011.
"This water was different than the other water because this time we didn't have the 8 or 10 inches of rain after the river come up, that's the saving grace, that's why this event wasn't as bad as the '11 event."
That's a statement the National Weather Service’s Synder agrees with.
"I would say that the flooding on the lower Ohio from Smithland to Paducah and Cairo is probably about the worse since the flooding in 2011, although not quite as severe, but in terms of the shear level of the rivers its getting within a couple of feet of the crest in those locations."
Once the river reaches its crest and the level starts to slowly go down, these residents will begin another difficult task.
"The flooding is bad, the flooding is terrible, but the real challenge in anything like this is the clean–up."
Mayor McDaniel says it takes a lot of hard work for residents to get their homes back in order, but the city also has a lot of cleaning to do.
"Ice storms and things like that you pick it up, you throw it away, you burn it you do what you got to do with it and mother nature with water brings every piece of garbage in the world in and it takes none of it home with it."
For now, some residents along the river are watching the level slowly go down while to return home and hoping the warmer weather does not bring more heavy rain fall and force them out again.
