Family loses decades of memories in flood after record breaking storms
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's been nearly two weeks since record breaking storms swept through Chicago, and many residents on the city's West Side are still cleaning up from the floods.
CBS 2's Noel Brennan met a family that can't really put a price on what they lost.
Their home was once filled with at least 3 feet of water. The water is gone, but the work continues each day as they sort through waterlogged possessions.
In one afternoon water washed away what took the family a decade to create.
In her mind, there is little sense in trying to dry something flood water destroyed, but it's Melanie McQueen's heart that refuses to part with the items she stored with care in the basement of her Oak Park home.
"We'll bring everything out of the garage in an effort to salvage what we have left and lay it out on the grass," she said. "Some people might say, 'Well, why are you holding onto it?' And it's like this took two weeks to make."
On July 2 heavy rain flooded her basement and washed away decades of the family's memories.
Avery lost artwork from grade school.
"I had 56 books, and now I have three," she said.
Ambria lost keepsakes from college.
"Can water really wash away four years of my adulthood, of my college experience, of my first job? And it did," she said.
And the whole family grieves the loss of costumes and set pieces they created together.
"It's passion, blood, sweat and tears, mostly tears now," Melanie said.
She is executive director of the dance troupe Kuumba Kids.
"The entire square footage of the house, it was covered in our Kuumba Kids costumes, backdrops, props, you name it it was there," she said.
The after school dance program starts again in three months.
"We have potentially 60 students that have three different dance routines, and they have costumes for every single dance routine. And I don't have nothing," she said.
Insurance won't cover priceless costumes.
"Every single jewel on here was hand placed," she said.
Melanie knows she can't save it all, but she is not ready to give up the routine.
"I just can't. I can't," she said. "I don't care how messed up it is. It's just really hard to let go of something that you put your heart and soul into."
Each family affected by flooding has its own story of loss. Melanie said new neighbors had just moved into a house behind theirs. THey stored nearly everything they had in the basement and lost it in the flood.