(This is the first of two stories on recovery efforts.The second will appear Sunday.)
VAN BUREN, Mo. -- Mother Nature plays by her own rules, Robbie Williams explained as he walked through his Hickory Lane home, more than half a mile from the Current River.
Water was waist deep inside Williams' childhood home nearly a year ago, when century-old river level records were broken April 30, 2017.
It filled the basement, destroyed the walls and floors, and ruined a cabinet full of handmade gifts from his teenage daughter, Jerrica.
Williams, 53, tells the same story as many of his neighbors.
In a town used to flooding, no one expected a night of heavy rain to drive the Current River so far from its banks.
A few streets over, Kathy Seronello's home bears many of the same signs of ongoing construction work, from the new drywall to the stripped-bare kitchen.
Volunteers found dead fish in the 75-year-old's basement, after they pumped out all the water.
Both Seronello and Williams can stand in their front yards and point out the homes that are still damaged, the neighbors that have left and the many signs that their little river town is still rebuilding long after the world moved on.
About 200 homes were damaged or destroyed during a flood that lasted less than 24 hours, according to Dave Truncone, pastor of First Assembly of God Church and a member of the Carter County Long Term Recovery Committee.
"(People) think the water's rolled back and people have moved back into their homes. It doesn't work like that. We're just getting started," said Truncone, who came to Van Buren eight years ago. "We know we've got a lot of work to do, but we're committed to doing it."
The Current River topped 37 feet on April 30, beating a 29-foot record that had been held since 1904.
It was 17 feet above flood stage, higher even than the gauges used to measure the river.
Offers of help immediately poured in from across the country.
Truncone estimates about $1.4 million in donated, water, bleach, food, pet supplies, cleaning items and other necessities flowed through the church to residents.
Volunteer groups also began making arrangement to send tools, supplies and helping hands for reconstruction.
But 2017 would also mark the first time the U.S. was hit in the same year by two hurricanes of a Category 4 or greater.
Many of those promises were delayed by months, according to members of the LTRC.
"People might promise you the moon. They're going to do the best they can, but you have to do the work," said Truncone. "I think what we've learned is that to honestly rebuild, it takes the community to do it."
Truncone, church members and other volunteers are close to completing repairs to four homes, including for Williams and Seronello.
Both say the good they have received from this far outweighs a year spent displaced from their homes and the many other struggles since the flood.
Williams says he spent a lot of hours at work before, was estranged from some family members and had gotten away from going to church.
"I was just an old grouchy pain in the butt, from what I understand," Williams said, after a tour through his daughter's new room, with its fresh coat of yellow paint. "I didn't do it on purpose. It's just the way I was."
The biggest difference now, he says, is his faith.
"That just changes your life all together," he said, adding later, "I'll be a better dad for sure."
Worse than seeing the destruction of his home and town, the lowest moment for Williams was realizing all of the gifts his daughter had made for him during her childhood had been lost.
"I've not ever been one to give up, but the thought went through my mind in all this," he said. "But what are your options? You can be more bitter than what I already was and it gets you nowhere."
Nearly a year later, Williams no longer looks at the flood as a bad thing.
"You give me the option, I wouldn't go through it again. But when it does happen, you've got to make lemonade I guess. That's what I chose to do," said Williams, who spent the past year living with his daughter in a travel camper and later with family.
Seronello lost all of her family photos, many of her grandchildren's toys, her furniture and almost everything she owned. She had just 10 minutes to evacuate a home she's lived in since 2005.
Seronello thought, living so far from the river, it would be an overnight evacuation at most. She left her orange tabby cat, Tang, with some extra food, and her car in the garage, because the streets were already flooded.
Water was more than seven feet high in the garage.
Through it all, Seronello says she never cried.
"God had it. God knew it was going to happen. He saw us through it. I've been so well taken care of," said Seronello, who found a wet but well Tang hiding in the bedroom when she came home the next day.
Seronello has lived since the flood with an in law of her daughter.
Friends managed to salvage a few small piles of items from her home.
Other Van Buren residents came and picked up bags of laundry, taking the clothing to their own homes to clean.
Three men from her church tackled cleaning out the large basement that had been filled to the ceiling with river water.
"You can't believe how you feel when you see everything destroyed," said Seronello. "But everybody came in and volunteered. Everyone you could think of, the Baptists, the Methodists, all the churches came in. They did so much."
Volunteers from other communities and states also continue to come in, Truncone said. A group from Iowa just left, while another group from another state is expected after Easter.
Firefighters from St. Louis helped hang sheetrock in Williams' home, and companies like The Home Depot continue to provide support through low or no cost construction supplies, Truncone said.
While not everyone will be home by the one-year anniversary, Truncone believes many are close.
And the Van Buren community itself will be better after this, he says.
"I do know it will be different. It will never be the way it was. It will be strong, I believe, because there's a unification that's taking place," said Truncone.