Unprecedented floodwaters from the Black River ravaged several campgrounds in southeast Missouri last week, destroying local businesses right in the middle of their busiest tourist season, according to KSDK.
In Lesterville, a small unincorporated community roughly two hours south of St. Louis, Chris Dinkins and her husband, Dave, are facing a total rebuild at Twin Rivers Landing Campground, a property they purchased in 2014. For the town, the damage cuts straight to the core of the local economy.
“We have a school, and we have several campgrounds and float outfitters, and that’s basically all that this town is made up of, and it’s the livelihood of people,” Dinkins said.
While flooding is a known risk of life on the river, the couple had never seen the water surge as high as it did last Thursday night into Friday. Precautions taken to protect their infrastructure proved no match for the historic crest.
“We recently put some cabins on some stilts, thinking we had them high enough that water would never get inside them. And so we put them a foot higher than what water levels had ever reached before, and it got three feet in those cabins,” Dinkins added.
The Dinkins family said that the recovery process will take a long time. If you’d like to give back, an online fundraiser has been set up to support their employees and help with the massive cleanup ahead.
