Ken Rowe bought a shiny new Mercury Comet in 1965.

Forty-one years later, in May 2006, floodwaters ripping through his low-lying neighborhood off Riverside Park Drive got as high as the Comet’s roof.

Still, Rowe, a former teacher with no flood insurance for his home of nearly three decades, pledged to get the Comet running again.

But 11 months later, there was more flooding and more damage.

“It took a log through the windshield this time,” said Rowe, who was more concerned with removing the feet of mud and contaminated water from his home than he was with his ‘65 Comet swamped in sludge in his side yard.

Rowe was just one of hundreds of Allenstown residents forced to evacuate their homes during the recent deluge, which peaked on Monday, April 16, and Tuesday, April 17.

What many people encountered upon their homecoming was even more ruin, wreckage and destruction than last year when Mother’s Day rains flooded the area.

Gov. John Lynch has said early estimates of statewide infrastructure damage due to the floods exceed $36 million, and he’s asked the federal government for a declaration of disaster, which could give the state some federal aid.

But what Lynch saw when he toured parts of Allenstown on Thursday, April 19, were intimate stories of damaged property and depreciated morale.

Not only were furniture and appliances destroyed, he said, “but (also) pictures, memories.”

Anasa Mpingo’s modest yellow home on the banks of the Suncook River was condemned after last year’s floods. For 11 months she’d worked to move back in, spending thousands of dollars to make her home safe and habitable.

After the most recent floods, Allenstown’s code enforcement officer, Cliff Jones, had to again break the news to Mpingo that she couldn’t return home. Hers was one of at least seven Allenstown homes that had been condemned by press time.

“She’s been a real sweetheart,” said Jones. “She hasn’t been able to live here since last year.”

Said Mpingo, who was preparing to leave with her sister, “I’ll just grab what I need and go.”

Allenstown’s Claire Audet said she spent most of her 401K savings to fix up about $35,000 worth of damage to her Riverside Park Drive home and family property after last year’s floods. “This is brutal,” said Audet’s son, Thomas, who lives in the family home. “I can’t take this no more.”

Audet and her family just returned to their home last fall, and, like many people in Allenstown, Pembroke and Epsom, again are displaced.

Thomas Audet said the replay of last year’s floods is psychologically taxing as residents again embark on months worth of repairs.

“When you lay down to sleep, you think of all the work you need to be doing,” he said. “You can’t sleep.”

Keith Donovan and Nancy Garceau, Riverside Park Drive residents who are expecting twin babies this summer, said there was $25,000 worth of damage to their home and property last year, and this year’s damage is equally devastating.

The couple was skeptical of the federal emergency help they could be getting.

“I hope FEMA gets here a little faster this time,” said Donovan, who got a check for less than $200 from the federal organization last year.

Allenstown Police Chief Shaun Mulholland told Lynch he estimates about $700,000 to $1 million in damage to Allenstown public infrastructure alone as a result of the recent floods.

That estimate doesn’t include the home and property damage to people in neighborhoods like Riverside Park Drive, where septic systems are floating in people’s yards and pools of standing water are mixed with contaminants like fuel, he said.

“It’s going to take a long time to get these back up to code, where they’ll be habitable,” he said of many Allenstown homes.

“We’ve got a lot of people that will be out (of their homes) for a very long time.”