After the waters receded from the devastating 2011 Souris River flood, many Minot residents went to work to rebuild their homes – and their lives.
Some used volunteer help. Others hired contractors. And still others did the rebuild themselves.
In part two of the series “Minot: Rebuilding Dreams,” Prairie Public’s Dave Thompson has the stories of two homeowners – and a volunteer – who worked to repair and restore disrupted lives.
Dan Marler wasn’t sure he would be able to rebuild. He could see the existing Souris River dike from his back porch. And the city of Minot was making plans for flood control.
“Initially, it sounded like they would come through my backyard and dike it up quite a bit bigger, which would have taken my property out – some kind of buyout," said Marler. "As the plan went on through the winter, and discussions, it became apparent that they were going to with another diversion plan just south of where I live by a half-mile.”
Marler says at that point, he had a choice – sell the house, or what was left of it, or rebuild. He chose to rebuild – and started looking for help.
“I thought I could get a jump on not only some decent contractors, but maybe better pricing – starting a little earlier," said Marler. "So that was the plan we went with.”
In another part of town, Ben and Cassie Podoll were faced with the same task of rebuilding their home. They decided they were going to do the work on the house themselves.
“My uncle has been helping us tremendously," said Cassie Podoll. "He has been our Godsend. He has helped us rebuild everything. We only hired out for the electricity and heating. The rest we’ve done ourselves.”
“He would come up, show us a few things, get us started on sheetrocking," said Ben Podoll. "We’d do one room, call him back up and say, ‘We’re done with that – now what?’ Then we went with the next step of mudding and taping, so on and so forth. He would get us started, we’d finish it off, and he would come back up and get us started.”
The Podolls say they’d never worked with sheet rock before. That was a challenge. But they had a bigger challenge.
“Yeah, the biggest challenge was having time to do things. We both work full time, with three children. We don’t start work on the house until after supper – kids go to bed, and it’s kinda challenging – but that’s what we had to deal with.”
Marler says in his case, contractors did 60 percent of the work, and he did 40 percent. He says he became the de facto general contractor for his house project.
“One thing about a disaster like this, a lot of contractors come from out of state, which is really good," said Marler. " On the other hand, you really need to screen them and make sure you’re getting a good one, because there’s good, bad and kind of in-between. So it’s real important to screen that.”
Many homeowners had volunteer help. And some of the volunteers came from other states. Calin Sterling came from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Minot, as part of the Americorps project. She says she was taken by surprise – both by the magnitude of the damage, but also by the determination of Minot residents.
“I was really impressed with the perseverance of the homeowners, that despite how the community might be looking, with all the homes just down to the studs, basically – they’re still there, every day, helping each other out, doing what they can for themselves and just rebuilding little by little – because it’s their home.”
Marler says the work was well worth it.
“Overall, I’m happy to have a home again," said Marler. "It’s great we have an opportunity to live right here again. But there are some downfalls. One – we see many of our old friends and neighbors gone now. But that’s just part of the process. And we’ll keep moving forward, and hope that the new neighbors – when they eventually arrive – are as good as the old ones.”
Cassie and Ben Podoll agree.
“This is an experience we hope we don’t have to go through again," said Cassie Podoll. "I think it did make our family stronger. We had to work together as a team, with a lot of patience. But overall, everything’s great now.”
