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LOCKPORT, N.Y. — A month after Patrick Knapp and his girlfriend moved into their new home in Lockport, they never imagined or expected the housewarming gift they'd receive from Mother Nature.

"It never really crossed my mind,” Knapp said.

Heavy rains in July of last year produced major flooding across many Lockport neighborhoods, including in Knapp’s basement, as seen in a video he took.

Like many homes on his street, Knapp’s does not have a sump pump, leaving residents unable to manage the rushing water.

"It was frantic,” he said. “The water came as a general trickle at first and I had nothing but paper towels on hand at the moment. So I was actually plugging like these individual holes with paper towels.”

He then scooped water from the floor into the basement sink before going out and grabbing the pool pump.

"We attached the hose to the pump and then we ran probably 25 feet of hose from my basement window to the street here,” he said.

"Oh, floods are terrible,” ARC Disaster Action Team volunteer Diane Sargent said. “The flash floods that come so quickly that people aren't prepared for them.”

Fresh off her deployment from flood-ravaged Kentucky, Sargent has been with the Red Cross for more than 20 years and was there for flood victims in Lockport.

“It was certainly a disaster,” she said. “And it was hard on all the people.”

The agency declared September National Disaster Preparedness Month, encouraging homeowners and renters to have a kit, make a plan and be informed in the event of a climate-related disaster. 

"There's just so many things going on,” she said. “It's just mind-boggling. What do we do should this happen? What do we do if there's a fire? Or a flood?"

More than a year later, Knapp’s walls are still damaged. And while he agrees it is important to be prepared, he wasn't ready, given the magnitude of what happened.

"I don't know if there's anything you can do to be ready for three, four, five feet of water on your street at any given time,” Knapp said.

While it hasn't happened since, the couple has prolonged their plan to refurbish the basement.

"We're thinking about what kind of flooring to put in, what kind of walls we want to put in,” Knapp said. “Making sure everything is water resistant. And hopefully we'll never have to deal with something like that of that caliber or scale ever again.”

He’s hoping for the best, and now better prepared for the worst.