Until you actually visit their fields and view their land up close can you appreciate what they mean. Fields once filled with green shoots of corn measuring three to four inches high, have been turned into a virtual wasteland.
White sand covers the fields two to three feet deep in some spots.
Huge 75 foot cottonwoods, still green with leaves, litter the land, their roots exposed to the sun after being torn from the ground by floodwaters so fierce, they were carried several hundred feet before landing in upturned disarray. The five mile dike that once successfully protected the valley and its livelihood, is now a tattered strip of land with several breaches, some measuring 400 to 600 feet in length. The simple, gravel roads along those dikes will have to be rebuilt, along with the dike itself that was built to hold back 48 feet of water. The stench of death after a flood they say will last at least a month. It s estimated that 20 acres of bottom land will produce 3,000 bushels of corn.