ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — The rising Mississippi has some marina owners in St. Charles County beating a familiar drum of preparation.
But one is doing things differently this year: he gave up flood insurance.
"I made the bold decision. My mother, the owner, is pretty nervous right now,” Carl Bumba said.
Despite the forecast, he doesn’t regret the decision.
Bumba runs Woodland Marina. It’s been in his family for 60 years. Before Bumba started running the place, he’d come down from Chicago to help during floods.
"They're gonna happen. That's part of the beauty of the place,” he said.
But flood insurance has gotten too expensive, Bumba said.
The boats are insured through their owners’ policies, and Bumba said $30,000 a year is just too much to insure his office and shop.
Even if this flood reaches ’93 levels, it’s still better for them to pay the cost of repairs than the insurance rate, he said.
"It's just more of a way of life, you just kind of accept it,” he said.