Osawatomie ? Frankie Brewer was less than $10,000 from having her family’s trailer paid off and was looking forward to being out from under that debt.

But Tuesday, she was wondering how she was going to get her trailer out from under the water that had inundated her southern Osawatomie neighborhood.

“They say, ‘God willing and the creek don’t rise,'” she said as she waited for her husband and son to salvage anything they could from the trailer. “Well, the creek went right through my trailer.”

Brewer’s home was one of about 210 dwellings – including single-family homes, duplexes, mobile homes and apartments – that were still under water Tuesday. Law enforcement officers and National Guard troops were positioned around the flooded areas, and residents were being discouraged from returning from their homes until they dried out enough for city and county inspectors to check them.

That’s required before electricity and gas can be restored, said Mark Schmidt, Miami County undersheriff.

“Once the water recedes, they can get in there and inspect the dwellings pretty quickly,” he said.

About 200 people were sleeping in shelters, but most people, including the Brewers, were staying with relatives and waiting for the arrival of Federal Emergency Management Agency officials before deciding what to do.

“This is not as bad as other disasters,” Brewer said as she stood near her street, which was still mostly under water on the hot, steamy day. “It’s not something like Katrina, and we’re grateful for that, but it still hurts.”

The combination of heat and about 20 pumps had reduced the water levels significantly in most parts of town by Tuesday afternoon, but some neighborhoods still were under several feet of water.

“It’s just a wait now,” Schmidt said. “With 20 pumps working, they’re removing water from between the levees as fast as they can.”

The Salvation Army was serving meals and distributing donations that had poured in for residents since Sunday. So many clothes had been donated that people were being discouraged from bringing more.

People will need things to clean their homes, such as hoses, shovels, boots and gloves, said Rob Roberts, director of the Miami County Salvation Army.

But for Jesse Kingsolver, the biggest problem was explaining to his 8-year-old son why they can’t return to their duplex to retrieve his stuff.

“It’s under 5 feet of water,” he said. “Today we can see the gutters, but they don’t know what’s going on. We keep telling him it’s just stuff.”