After exploring the flood damage at Hillsdale Lake earlier, I decided to checkout the flood damage in Osawatomie, Kansas. When I first arrived in Osawatomie, I headed through town on Main Street. After dissecting the town, I noticed no flood damage. I did notice several volunteer pointers and Red Cross help stations. After driving around for several minutes and noticing no flood damage, I stopped to talk to a deputy sheriff. The deputy sheriff pointed me to the south part of town and said that flooded areas were south of town where the levee was not as high as the levee is north of town.
Heading south, it didn't take long to start seeing signs of flood damage. Businesses had there interiors gutted out and anything that could be gathered was laid out by the street. The farther south I headed the worse the destruction looked. There were some streets that the water was over the roofs of the homes. I saw many a huge apartment complex that was gutted by the flood and all 15 buildings were totally inhabitable.
A couple streets had tractors knocking down homes and cleaning up the streets so residents could come and claim what was left. I saw a few cars that were covered in mud. One lady had knocked out the window of one car and a black sludge came pouring out of the car.
My first impression of Osawatomie was that the news media hyped up the flood. After viewing the destruction, it was worse then I imagined. There was street after street after street with major damage. It's estimated that over 40% of the town was under water. It will definitely take some time to repair the damage.