Norman homeowner prepares for another round of flash flooding

Kris Bowline has called Norman home for many years. Over the weekend, her house flooded — again — something that’s happened multiple times over the decades she’s lived there.

"How do you stop rain that comes, you know, three inches in an hour, or something, or 2.5 inches in an hour?" She said. "You do your best on that, but you put in French drains and you clean up the mess afterwards, and you carry flood insurance."

On Monday, she was outside washing one of her inside rugs that had been dirtied over the weekend. She had to throw away several others.

Bowline said she purchased flood insurance five years ago through the National Flood Insurance Program, costing her less than $500 a year.

"Two years ago I wound up having to gut my house and replace all the wood floors and went back with tile floors," she said. "So, at this point in time, you learn to adapt on that and put in more French drains to carry the water away from the house."

Bowline, who earlier in life worked as a ranger for the National Park Service, calls herself a citizen scientist. Despite dealing with flooding on a frequent basis, she has a deep appreciation for rain.

At 7 a.m. each morning, she reports her rain gauge reading to Colorado State's CoCoRAHS precipitation measurement project.

If the weather becomes bad, she said she'll be ready.

"I'll be watching the weather, and if it gets bad, I'll get in my 'fraidy hole," she said.