Amid flooding, victims regret what wasn’t saved

He spent six days, 10 hours a day, helping to build a mile-long sandbag levee at his neighborhood near the Iowa River.

The levee was 6 feet high in some places, but it still wasn’t enough to keep the swollen river from sweeping into his home on June 12, ruining couches, beds and other things he didn’t have time to save.

Sherburne and his wife bought flood insurance 10 days before that — just days after buying the house — but it wasn’t soon enough. Thirty days must pass before the policy is activated, he said, and the insurer has rejected the claim he filed.

“We had spent so much time building up the levee, and it didn’t hold. We would have been better off getting stuff out of there,” Sherburne, 29, said Thursday. iReport.com: Watch Sherburne tour his flooded house