Bellevue City officials say they hope to begin bulldozing the flood damaged homes at Paradise Lakes in the next month.
Residents lost everything following the catastrophic flooding and Sunday was the final day for them to retrieve belongings. Soon their entire community will be gone.
"It hurts,” Paradise Lakes resident John Sturzenegger told 6 News. “It hurts me, that's all my stuff. It's all gone. I mean it was all gone. I don't know what else to say about it, it just hurts."
A barricade went up in front of the property’s entrance on Monday. All the homes have been deemed contaminated and will have to be demolished.
Bellevue Mayor Rusty Hike tells 6 News the city is working on a daily basis to make sure the homes at Paradise Lakes are torn down as soon as possible, but it’s proving difficult.
"A lot of moving pieces,” the mayor said. “You've got Paradise Lakes who owns the land. All the owners of the units own the units on them, so they're leasing from the owner. The landowner himself owns a bunch of the units so there's a lot of different layers."
Hike says it’s in the city’s best interest to work with the owners, even with the complications. "We have to make sure we do it right, so if there is any reimbursements we get those and it's not on the taxpayer,” Hike says.
He's hoping to begin demolition in the next month. "I would think that would be realistic, unless the ownership causes a problem, but I'm hopeful we'll be in there within a month working on that."