King's Lake begins rebuild after appealing flood assessments

According to King's Garden, a nonprofit based in King's Lake, over 50 appeals have been filed and accepted by Omaha. Overturning their previous flood assessments that deemed many homes too damaged to rebuild.

Ken Gruber with Omaha Rapid Response said he's surprised how many have been approved.

"We thought there were going to be a few homes that had to be torn down, and we didn't want to do that with anybody but there are just a few homes in pretty bad shape," Gruber said.

Ted and Mary Boganowski have been living in an RV on their land for months with no plumbing and only temporary electricity.

Because their home is in the floodway, their original assessment said if they wanted to rebuild in the same spot, they first had to build their home a foot above the flood level. But their appeal was accepted, and now they only have to bring it up to code.

A job Luthrine Disaster Care from Texas was happy to help with.

"We're helping put people's lives back together," David Ricks said.

King's Garden said after the initial wave of volunteers, there was a dip in the number of people coming to help the community. It was a summer break that brought younger and more people to the area to help.

Now that flood assessments have been appealed, the community said there is a need for skilled builders who can help.