Posted at: 03/11/2013 6:39 PM
Updated at: 03/11/2013 6:43 PM
By: Brittany Lewis

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Rain Causes Flooding, Damaged Basements

(ABC 6 News) -- Before the snow, there was rain and lots of it. It’s caused backyards to turn into ponds and left basements with water damage. And with the temperatures supposed to head back up this week, this could be just the beginning of the problem.

"This was a nice raging river, basically, um, it had rapids and froth and we could hear the sound of the water in the house,” said Lizzi Clobes. Clobes lives in the 400 block of 23rd Ave Southwest. Behind her house, sits a bed of water she says is normally only four feet wide.

But Saturday was a different story. The water submerged about a third of her backyard.

"Our kids can't be back here absolutely not, I mean where the snow line is, you can still can pretty much guarantee another five feet is slush underneath that,” said Clobes.

Fortunately, the water did not spread to her basement, but the same cannot be said for Ken Gatliff.

"We got up Saturday morning, we's walking along here, somebody went squish with their stocking feet and we said what's going on. And looked to see if the dog was around and maybe did something... but no, so everywhere we walked was squish, squish, squish,” said Gatliff.

"Busier than I've seen it in 15 years,” said Rob Dunham, owner of All-star Basements.

In the last week, we’ve seen more than two inches of rain and melted snow which translated into nearly 120 calls for Service Master. Another company, All-star Basements, has at least 75.

"Been nonstop since Saturday, Sunday. I'll look at stuff from 8 in the morning until 9 at night both nights and today,” said Dunham.

"It's awful and the worst of it is, it's not covered by insurance,” said Gatliff.

Without flood insurance, the Gatliff’s could spend up to $12,000 on repairs and new carpeting; a raging river of costs.

All-star Basements says with the frozen and snow covered ground, the soil can’t absorb the water, making these winter rains, nearly as bad as torrential downpours.