GRIMES, Iowa — Jessica Anderson, a Grimes resident, has dealt with major flooding from a creek in her backyard since she purchased her home in 2021.

“Our biggest problem is the flooding and everything that it brings up. It floods our garage, it damages things in there. It’s for the crawl space under our house. The first year we lived here, we lost our furnace, water heater, sump pump,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that the seller of the home did not warn her about the flooding.

“We were explicitly told there was no history of flooding. There were no problems at all, that even though it is in a floodplain, the previous owners had no problem with that. No water in the house, no water anywhere around the house. And shortly after we moved in, that proved to not be true,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that a few years ago the City of Grimes pitched a project that would add infrastructure to the creek to reduce flooding, but some residents in her neighborhood declined stopping the project.

Alex Pfaltzgraff, the Development Services Director for the City of Grimes, said that the city is working on a plan to buyout Anderson’s property using FEMA grants.

“If the application is awarded and approved, then funding would become available for the acquisition and the demolition of the property so they would get paid a fair market value based on an appraisal and then they would relocate,” Pfaltzgraff said.

Anderson said she would take the buyout if the grant money is approved and that she doesn’t want to sell the property to another homeowner.

“We’ve thought about selling and stuff and we just don’t want to pass this on to anybody else. And it’s a problem that’s bigger than us. It’s not just our yard that floods, it’s the neighbors. It’s all the way up the creek. So, if they could use this space as a flood space and that would help other people, that would probably be the best option,” Anderson said.

Pfaltzgraff said that the grants could take a while to be approved.

“We have applications submitted to the Iowa DNR and FEMA that are under review. Unfortunately, the reviews are outside of our control and we’re kind of beholden to their process. But it is something that we’re actively keeping tabs on and communicating with the property owners as progress is made,” Pfaltzgraff said.

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