Kaytie Boomer I Photojournalist

When the rainfall kept coming down and the water level in the nearby river began to rise, Rebecca Johnson was sure it was just the usual spring weather.

She had no idea her life was about to turn upside down.

“I look back now and I was so naive. We could have been packing things,” said Johnson, who lives in Sanford, a village in Midland County that sits in the shadow of the Sanford Dam. “They had it hyped up so much, but I was like, ‘It floods every year, it’s not going to be that bad, the dams are not going to break.’”

Flashing red lights woke her around 4 a.m. on May 19 as firefighters went door to door telling residents to evacuate. They expected the Sanford dam and the Edenville Dam above it to fail after all.

Johnson and her daughter, 18-year-old Autumn Pontseele, stayed put for awhile, until rising water began creeping up into their backyard. They escaped just in time.

Their home was one of more than 4,000 in Midland County damaged by flooding after the two dams failed and millions of gallons of muddy water poured downstream. Sanford, located just northwest of the city of Midland, was among the hardest hit areas.

When Johnson and Pontseele were able to return, they found their home full of “squishy mud.”

Recovering from the disaster has taken months of hard work and some good fortune. As Christmas 2020 approaches, they are ready to celebrate in a residence rebuilt with the help of donors, family and volunteers.

Their house did not sit even one day after the initial flooding before the cleanup began. Help swarmed in from coworkers at Big Boy, friends from Autumn’s old school, Samaritan’s Purse volunteers, SFT Remodeling, FEMA, United Way and many more.

Throughout the whole process, the hardest part for Johnson was letting go of the damaged items that had meaningful memories attached to them. The pressure and time constraint to get everything out of the house to avoid mold caused many belongings to be overlooked and thrown into a garbage pile.

“Everything sat at the road for days, and I hated seeing it every day. It was all our stuff, it was awful. I watched them take it away and I think that was worse,” Johnson said. “It’s really real, that’s it, we’ll never see it again.”

They had to gut the interior of the home. Cutting the ruined drywall out, removing insulation, spraying for mold, ripping the beloved hardwood floor up and drying out the basement took many weeks.

They first stayed with Johnson’s other daughter, Hayley Pontseele, before deciding to move to a hotel. After three weeks there, a disaster relief company paid for their stay at a Midland hotel. Red Cross took over the expenses at a different Midland hotel for the next two weeks before Johnson and Autumn Pontseele set up a camper in their yard.

Both were taking classes while all of this happened. Once it began getting colder, Johnson moved in with her boyfriend, Greg Yancer, to be able to give Autumn and herself more space to continue their schoolwork.

They tried to make the best of the situation.

“We really didn’t have any bad times. We made it fun as it was constant go, go, go. We didn’t really have any woe is me feelings at all,” Johnson said. “I smiled the whole time, what else could you do?”

Little did they know, a big break was coming their way. Angela Cole, a local attorney who lived in Sanford for over 40 years, was tasked to pick families in the area to receive funding assistance from the Rebuild Project, which is a partnership through the Midland Business Alliance and Three Rivers Corporation. Cole threw Johnson’s name in the mix.

The company came by and surveyed how far along they were in the rebuild process, which included having a working bathroom, electrical set up throughout the home, floors ripped up, drywall hung and so on.

Johnson and Pontseele continued working on the home with the help of others as they waited to hear if they would be picked, and got the call shortly afterward. Midland Area Community Foundation and Three Rivers Corporation were going to cover the rest of the job up to $100,000.

“There were so many reasons I provided Rebecca’s name. She was already underway with her rebuild, was close to downtown and was a long-term Sanford resident,” Cole said. “Rebecca’s attitude and joy humbled me. In every interaction she was so thankful and grateful for help in spite of all she had been through.”

Rebuilding was paused for about two months as paperwork was sorted out. Once it began, Johnson had to give her input for what she wanted for the floors, kitchen and bedrooms. She and her daughter had an idea of what they were going to do, but getting all-new items was an unusual experience for them.

The companies working on the home set Thanksgiving for the family to move back into the home. As of December, the home is occupied, though they are waiting on the countertops, which are to arrive in January as the pandemic caused a backorder on some of the products chosen for the house.

They’ve been able to empty out their two storage units filled with their belongings and the new project of decorating and putting things in their place has begun. Just in time for Christmas.

As things begin to settle down, they both say they will be on the job hunt in the new year. And they are both elated to still call Sanford home as their community continues to pick up the pieces.

“We never thought about abandoning it, never thought about moving,” Pontseele said. “We’ve already had two community events, even with nothing here. People still come down and celebrate.”

They are certain they couldn’t have done it without the help of the community, volunteers, donations, and family and friends who chipped in over the last seven months.

“I want to figure out a way to give back, I’m just not there yet. I’ll figure it out though, one way or another,” Johnson said. “I mean, how many times can you say thank you? They just made the whole situation better. We couldn’t have done it alone.”