Saturday August 14, 2021
By Tara Campbell
‘All the doors were open and the water was going so fast.’
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Last weekend’s flash-flooding wiped out the bottom units of an apartment complex in Omaha, leaving a dozen refugee families without a home.
“It was a disaster the water came in and we had no idea what was going on,” said Samira Mohamed, who’s been working hard alongside her sister Sabirine, to salvage what they can.
“All the doors were open and the water was going so fast,” said Sabirine, noting they could hear the younger children in the building: “They were screaming,” she said.
But these two teenagers kept calm. They’ve seen floodwaters hit their home before in Somalia, but didn’t think it would happen in the United State.
“I was thinking, ‘phew, I’m in America that will never happen’,” said Sabirine. “But when it happened I was really shocked.”
They lost everything from school supplies, to phones, tablets, clothes, and their mother lost half her savings all in cash, destroyed by the water.
“She was almost saving for a year because she wanted to buy a house like a whole house that we could buy,” said Samira. “And half of that money just went into the water.”
The American Red Cross was on site Thursday along with local nonprofits.
“The families right now are compiling a list of everything they lost. Many of the families lost almost everything in the apartments,” said Hannah Wyble, Executive Director and Founder of Restoring Dignity.
The non-profit will be posting a list on its website and collecting donations. “Once these units are fixed we will bring it to the families so everything they lost can be restored to them,” said Wyble
Copyright 2021 WOWT. All rights reserved.