Petula Loveless went to a Thursday meeting with representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency wanting answers.

What she left Hubbard High School with was an important lesson in homeowner's insurance that came nearly a month too late.

Mrs. Loveless, who lives just steps from Mud Run Creek on East Park Street, has weathered heavy storms before. She remembers the exact date of the last time her home was severely flooded.

It was Aug. 20, 1990. Her oldest son was turning three months old and she had to carry him around in waist-deep water.

That was when the dam at Harding Park broke.

Now, she wants to know why 13 years later, her home was flooded again, filling with nearly 11 feet of water over two weeks.

"Whoever said it won't happen again ... they had 13 years to fix it," she said.

This time, Mrs. Loveless and her family lost so much, they haven't even estimated their loss.

"It's bad enough we lost a lot," she said. "We're still cleaning up the mess."

Part of that mess is visible behind her home. Large piles of dirt mixed with debris litter parts of her backyard. Tree stumps are in another pile.

A mini-tour of her property yields water damage galore. The foundation on part of the back of her house is gone and the room is sinking. Antique barn timbers housed in her garage, which also doubles as her husband's cabinet shop, are destroyed.

"My house was sitting in the middle of a river," she said.

Her children's toys -- the ones that weren't part of the stash that looters took in front of their home -- are caked with mud.

Dried mud is still visible on some equipment in the garage -- a garage that was being prepared to be used for entertaining, she said.

The aftermath of the damage looks overwhelming. Mrs. Loveless said sorting through it is even harder.

"It's not just us, it's our whole neighborhood," she said as she walked over the gravel that is left of the driveway she said the storms washed away.

Mrs. Loveless called the Federal Emergency Management Agency as many Trumbull County residents were urged to do. In Friday's mail, she received a letter from FEMA telling her she had been approved to receive about $1,000.

"That covers maybe six weeks worth of groceries for a family of five," she said. "It doesn't begin to cover building materials or even a contractor."

As for insurance coverage, the Loveless family has learned, like so many others dealing with storm damage, that the homeowner's insurance policy will not cover most damage.

"There was water coming up through my kitchen sink," she said, adding that her policy doesn't cover sewer back-ups. "It's just one thing after another."

In addition to her Dodge Durango being inundated with water, Mrs. Loveless said her furnaces were damaged, and a new problem has arisen -- pests.

She said snakes from the runoff ditch behind her home slither behind her home. Raccoons, rats and rabbits scurry about in the area as well.

She said she would like to see the county department of health come out and set traps for the rodents, and she'd like to see state representatives hold the insurance companies accountable.

"I'd love to see Rep. Dann and Sen. Ryan get on these insurance companies," she said. "There needs to be legislation and boundaries put on these companies."

Though she is frustrated, she had some valuable advice for other homeowners.

"In order to completely understand your policy, take it to an attorney and have him interpret it for you," she said. "You can't trust anybody out there as far as business goes."

But she's not content with sitting and waiting for the next great flood to wipe away more of her property.

"Everybody needs to get together and fix it ourselves," she said. "It's time we work together as a community and get this problem taken care of."

Through it all, the family has kept going. Mrs. Loveless said it's hard to sleep at night due to worrying about more rain and replacing things.

"We'll probably stay ... the only thing left to do is clean up and go on," she said.