Lisa Hlavinka | The Gazette

GLORIA GLENS — Robert and Linda Friedel have to move out of their Twilight Trail home by the end of the month, but the couple isn’t crying the blues.

In fact, the Friedels are singing in the rain.

The couple’s home was bought by the Medina County Emergency Management Agency in February through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant. The grant was administered by the county agency as part of a flood mitigation project that began in 2000.

Overall, 43 homes and lots in the Chippewa Lake area were bought between 2003 and 2009.

Selling to the county was strictly voluntary, said Christina Fozio, deputy director of the county’s Emergency Management Agency.

The Friedels were the last holdouts in the project, which will be complete when six homes, including theirs, are razed this year.

The county first approached the Friedels to buy their home in 2004, but the family thought they were not offered enough money, Robert Friedel said.

In January, however, Friedel, 64, said the county offered an amount that allowed him to break even on the home, which he and his wife bought for about $75,000 and put about $80,000 into it.

The purpose of the flood mitigation project is to lower the number of insurance claims on houses that flood several weeks or even months out of the year, Fozio said. As an example, she said one house the county purchased made 17 claims worth a total of $350,000 when the house was worth only $150,000.

The Friedels said they have had to make plenty of claims on their home at 519 Twilight Trail over the years. Robert Friedel also owned a home his father built in 1953 on Twilight Trail that was bought and razed by the county in 2004, said Friedel, a retired Parma firefighter.

Flooding was always a threat, but Friedel said it has gotten worse in recent years. He suspects new development has caused more runoff and wonders if building on the north side of Chippewa Lake will exacerbate the situation.

“With them building on the north side of the lake, and with more runoff, I have a feeling it will get worse instead of better,” he said.

Chippewa Partners LLC is building a resort complex, including a spa, hotel and culinary school, on the site of the old Chippewa Lake Amusement Park.

Throughout the years, rainwater constantly flooded his father’s home, leaving 18 inches of water in the crawl space after a heavy rain, Friedel said. His family’s possessions floated in the water, and they had to wait for it to recede with only the help of a few standing fans before they could clean up the mess.

The Friedels bought their current home on Twilight Trail in 2000 and renovated it in 2003, remodeling the inside and adding a large wrap-around porch.

“That particular house had a nice porch, and when it rained, it was like a moat,” Fozio said of the Friedels’ home. “It was like an island.”

Like many homeowners, Friedel said cleaning up after floods became more of a hassle than it was worth.

“When I was 40 years old, it wasn’t bad, I could handle it,” he said. “But now that I’m 60, it’s gotten worse.”

Some homeowners were grateful to have the opportunity to move, especially because they were unable to sell their homes.

“A lot of them are in a pickle because they have nice homes but they can’t find someone to buy a home that floods three months a year,” Fozio said.

The grants stipulate that any land set aside must not be developed for “its lifetime” and should have some kind of public use. The land in question likely will be turned into park space, possibly a playground or football field, Fozio said.

For the Friedels, it won’t matter what is put in place of their home. Next week, the couple will move to Florida to live closer to their two children.

“It’s time for a change,” Friedel said. “The older you get, the harder it is to put up with this stuff.”

Contact Lisa Hlavinka at (330) 721-4048 or lhlavinka@ohio.net.