LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- August 4 2009, six inches of rain in less than hour. Disaster in just moments and millions of dollars' worth of damage.
Then it was over, but the rebuilding for thousands in Kentuckiana was just beginning, Barbara Whitfield recalls that day all too well as she recalls, "That's when I saw the refrigerator floating across the basement."
Even after 22 inches flooded her basement, Whitfield remains in her same home in the Algonquin meadows area of Louisville since 1977, she said FEMA helped pay for her damages.
But some in West Louisville are selling their property to FEMA as part of a voluntary buyout program.
Stephanie Laughlin with MSD explains the process, "Following the August 2009 storm events, we applied for flood mitigation grants for several areas of West Louisville, submitted those to FEMA and many of those proceeded into FEMA review."
Properties in the Wewoka/West Park, Algonquin Meadows, Belquin and Lynwood neighborhoods are the focus, if people have suffered repetitive severe loss and the property has historical preservation value their homes can be bought based on the pre damage worth.
Brenda Hutcherson, also lives in the Algonquin Meadows area and lived through the 2009 floods, "When you come home and your house is flooded, water everywhere and I mean you can't even prevent it and then you didn't even get your stuff replaced and you had to go through so much with FEMA I can understand why some people wanted to sell." Whitfield adds, "I could understand why someone would move if that was going on continuously."
Residents have until July 17 to submit a grant application, while FEMA reviews the potential environmental and historic preservation impacts of those properties.
For Whitfield and Hutcherson, they chose to stay but know firsthand this devastation that came out of nowhere.
