Daily Iowan

Issue date: 6/27/08 Section: Metro

Drops of rain fell intermittently on Roxann Wolfe's shoulders as she carried a few salvageable objects from her former home.

More water was one of the last things Wolfe wanted to see after floodwaters washed through her recently renovated 410 Third Ave. house last week.

"I sure do hate it," she said. "I liked my little house … I know I'm not coming back."

Wolfe also owns and rents out five other houses on Third Avenue. Each one has suffered significant damage from the flooding, and she said she plans on selling all of them.

Wolfe said she would have to wait until the weekend when some more "manpower" could come help her move larger objects from the dilapidated buildings.

Though the 52-year-old former Hy-Vee cashier still has enough energy to carry out the "little stuff," a mowing accident in September 2006 forced doctors to amputate the lower part of her left leg as well as three fingers, and her husband, Tim, died of a heart attack in the fall of 2003.

A resident of Iowa City for 14 years, Wolfe decided to move to the smaller house after the accident.

Others may have felt cursed or infuriated after so many traumatic events occurred so close to one another, but she said keeping a positive attitude isn't so difficult.

"If I could deal with this and carry on, I can work through [the flood]," she said, pointing to her prosthetic leg. "It doesn't do any good to be angry or cynical."

Trudging past the sandbags still littering her soggy front lawn, Wolfe loaded boxes filled with summer clothes and substantial mementos into her small silver SUV.

This is one of many trips she has made to and from the house over the past few days.

Wolfe was only allowed to begin the slow recovery process on Monday, when officials placed a yellow tag on her house granting her access to the formally inaccessible items inside.

An agent from the Federal Emergency Management Agency came the same day to assess the damages. Wolfe does not expect to hear back from the agency for another week, but she believes the building is a total loss.

Around a week before she was forced to evacuate, Wolfe said the neighborhood was buzzing with discussion about the possibility of a flood.

"We were talking about the flood in 1993," she said. "It flooded here, but nothing like it did this time."

Before June 12, when the neighborhood was evacuated, she said she thought the precautions taken by herself, as well as friends and family, would be enough.

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