After experiencing a home invasion in California, Lacey and Josh Radecki wanted to move to the safest place they could find. That's how they found Powell.

About 10 or 15 minutes after Josh left for work, a man intending to rob the home pulled the couple's sliding glass door off the tracks.

Lacey was still asleep in bed when she heard the ruckus and got up to see what was happening. The two met in the living room. 

"They were fully covered. That's the scary part, I don't even know what they looked like," Lacey said. 

"I was just going on adrenaline."

Looking back at their reasons to escape California, the scariest part for Lacey was as she looked into the eyes of the perpetrator and realized they were contemplating overtaking her for a long, horrific moment before eventually deciding to jump the fence and disappear.

"After that, I was like, I don't feel safe anymore... I was like, ‘I'm not going shopping without my husband or my daddy;’ and I'm a grown woman. It was a very dangerous place. I had no life. My PTSD was through the roof, and it was horrible. I was like, ‘We can't stay here. It's not a way to live.’”

They packed up their family, pets and businesses and settled in the All-American city in 2017, first living in city limits. Lacey was often caught off-guard when going to the grocery and having kind people — some she didn’t know — wave and smile at her. 

They loved living in Powell yet longed for a home in the country with a view and more room. Within a few years they began building  their dream home on Barrows Road, about a mile and a half northwest of Powell (north of Lane 8 and west of Road 11). They moved into their presumed paradise in 2022. 

"We wanted more space. We wanted country, free range — we have a lot of animals," Lacey said. "We wanted privacy, peacefulness, and that's what we envisioned with this house. But it's turned into a living hell."

Disastrous flooding, they say, came rushing underground from the Shoshone Irrigation District canal. Once what they called a "breach" happened, water started to cause damage to their home. They were forced to move out for a while to save their daughter, Brooklyn.

The resulting mold and mildew caused Brooklyn to become sick. She has asthma and allergies and mold is like Superman's kryptonite for this frail, yet feisty girl.

"She's in the yellow zone right now," Lacey said.

Like a stoplight, the green zone is good and the red zone is bad. Being in the yellow zone is only good if you're improving from the red zone. Struggling with asthma can wear your body down quickly, often opening the door for disease and infection.

"Brooklyn is an amazing little girl, even through all of this," Lacey said. "She's kind, respectful, and great with her school work despite missing days while she's out sick."

It has all been a struggle financially. After a recent trip to St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings, the family was invited to stay at the local Ronald McDonald House until Brooklyn was stable enough to go home.

"We are so thankful we had that opportunity as hotel rooms would’ve been expensive. Although, we did have to spend almost $2,000 boarding our dogs and lost a lot of work time," Lacey said. 

Fighting the flood

Before building their home the couple had a perc test performed (a required soil inspection that measures how quickly water drains, from the soil used to determine if land is suitable for building homes and septic systems). The tests generally cost between $750 and $3,000, depending on the complexities of the properties.

After the flood started inundating the west side of their house (the side next to the canal), the couple hired a hydrologist, who eventually said the flooding was due to the proximity to the canal, Josh said. As materials in the crawl space and western walls began to mold, the family's health began to decline. To temporarily remedy the situation, all the mold has been removed. Yet, the water table is so high water shoots out of their well and the couple are losing hope.

"The crawl space is still completely flooded. It's not going to dry out. So eventually, you know, all that water sitting there, like the hydrologist and other people have said, it's not going to stay a sound structure," Lacey said.

Both parents, who also have asthma, have been on edge, becoming emotional watching their daughter's health deteriorate. Tears of frustration flow often as they try to figure out where to go from here, assuming that they have lost everything but each other.

The Radecki family say they're stuck. They say they can't sell their modest home without pointing out the flooding issue, which literally means the house is worthless, Lacey said.

"We're honest, good people, and we can't sell it. It's worth nothing if we're honest," she said.

The district's rebuttal

Shoshone Irrigation District General Manager Trent Reed said he feels terrible about the situation. He said he wishes all builders would come to the district first to discuss good homesites in the district.

"We really encourage anybody that's going to build to come in and see us, and then we can look at our maps and see if there's any underground drains. Or, in this case, if it's a high alkali area, we can kind of forewarn them a little bit about potential issues," he said.

Reed said they have sent crews out to inspect the section of the canal and found no breaches or leaks. He said the white crust on the land should have been a warning that the property had high ground water. He contends that if the couple would have done the perc test in the fall, when he says the water table is higher, rather than spring, they would have seen much different results.

But all is not lost, he said. He believes a French drain that could move the water to the east side of the property could possibly save the structure.

"I do feel bad for them. It's not a good situation, but they are going to have to put in a French drain on [or in] their place to protect it. I think that's going to be their only solution," Reed said.

The option can come with a steep price. Exterior drains can cost between $5,000-$8,000. Interior drains could cost much more; possibly double the cost of exterior drains.

But, the Radecki's aren't buying it and say their exhaustive investigation and hired professionals disagree with the district's assessment.

"They went as far as trying to convince us that we have an artesian well and that’s where the water is coming from, which after our investigation and inspections we found to be completely false," Lacey said.

She contends the canal system pipes are over their life expectancy and "a couple other Shoshone Irrigation District employees also admitted that."

The couple have hired Cody's Rives White of Cowboy Legal, LLC, but are still hoping to avoid a lawsuit. The office offers special real estate legal services.

“We're good honest people, we just want to be paid for what the damages are [including structural and medical],” Radecki said.

(Zac Taylor contributed reporting)