Flooding rains may be causing serious health hazards for local residents. Now, federal officials are investigating whether you should be concerned.

It all started when storms flooded a neighborhood in Valley Center in 2008. Residents couldn't figure out why they were getting sick. Now, health experts believe they have the answer.

"In September, we were in 49 homes and 13 of them had low oxygen," said Wichita Environmental Services Spokesperson Kay Johnson.

Oxygen is the very component that allows us to live. Without it, we can't breathe. When heavy rains flooded out the Prairie Lakes edition in Valley Center last year, residents began noticing they were finding it hard to breathe inside their homes.

"It was just really hard to breathe," said Stephanie Sanderson. "We were just gasping for air. It felt like we had been running even though we hadn't been."

Sanderson was just one of the residents having problems. Now we know that the rising water table pushed potentially deadly gases into the Sanderson's basement, which depleted the oxygen.

Something else they noticed? Their water heater pilot light would not stay lit. A flame also requires oxygen.

Johnson, the environmental services director, tells us every time we have flooding rains, complaints of breathing problems inside homes rises. But before now, nobody could explain why.

"As we've started to investigate, people have started to say 'Whoa.' We had a dog in one case and people have gotten light headed," Johnson explained. "If someone were sleeping and the oxygen decreased to a dangerous level, they could potentially die."

Because of this, the EPA has placed monitoring devices in the ground around Prairie Lakes and other homes in the four county metro area. Dave Bryan with the EPA in Kansas City says they are checked every month.

"There's not a heck of a lot of research on this particular subject," said Bryan. "We're in new territory and that's one of the things that our research people are looking at."

Meanwhile, Sanderson says she keeps an extra watchful eye on her children, who's bedrooms are in her basement.

"Thank God my pilot light is right there by my sump pump and I know to keep an eye on it," she said "It tells me what I need to know."

Just with this week's heavy rain in Kansas, there have been some breathing problems reported in the Andover area. Fortunately, Johnson says the remedy is pretty easy. Simply air out your house by opening up some windows and turning on some fans.