WSIL -- For 145 days, the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau was above flood stage, with a majority of that time above a moderate level. At its worse, it reached over 46 feet. Anything higher than 42 feet is considered major.
"We, we really lost a lot of people after the flood. People that just couldn't come back and there's places getting torn down that you'd never see or never have thought", says James Myers, a church member and volunteer of The Spark, which was used as a safe haven during the flood.
After relentless heavy rain over the basin and upstream, river levels just couldn't keep up.
"Any water that we got here, stayed. We couldn't, we couldn't get rid of it," Myers said.
He and his wife began 'blessing boxes' as a way to help those in need, specifically those trapped in East Cape Girardeau due to the water, but now, it has grown into something much bigger.
"'Hey we need this, we need that' and I was like man there's a real need for it so we started sending out blessing boxes from here which turned into our God's House of Blessings Pantry."
While creating this food pantry, Myers himself was dealing with nearly a foot of water under his house for months. He now continues to advocate for his town by joining the town board, working with the drainage district and creating sandbag guidelines for the National Guard.
He has a simple plan for moving forward; "Putting unity back into community is gonna be a big thing".
Myers is hopeful that next time, they'll be better prepared, but for now, they've done their best to recover.
"We're back, and we're back stronger than ever."
