Fort Pierre braced for flooding

Todd Bernhard lives in a $500,000 dream home. Tacy Kennison built her home herself with volunteers as part of the Habitat for Humanity program. Cora Jeffries’ house has stood where it is since 1963.

All three Fort Pierre homes are under assault by the rising Missouri River below the Oahe Dam.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” Kennison said.

She moved into her house only six months ago -- able, through the Habitat for Humanity program, to finally own her own home after years of living with her parents.

Now, Kennison is back with her parents, evacuated from her new house to escape floodwaters expected to engulf up to half of the Missouri River town.

“We just threw everything in storage. We didn’t even pack an overnight bag,” Kennison said.

For Jeffries, who is 79, being driven from her longtime home by floodwaters has a tinge of irony. In 1963, rising waters upstream from the Big Bend Dam forced Jeffries and her husband to relocate their house from its original Pierre location to the mouth of the Bad River in Fort Pierre.

Now, both that house and the newer structure where she now lives are in danger of being inundated.

“The dam was supposed to prevent flooding. We already had to give up one place for the dam,” Jeffries said. “Here we are, the second time around.”

Jeffries, whose son Ron is the manager of the Central States Fair in Rapid City, reluctantly left her home -- and the efforts to protect it -- in the hands of relatives to attend a graduation in Rapid City.

“It makes me nervous, but the kids just said: ‘Get out of here, Mom. You can’t do anything,’” Cora Jeffries said. “It’s stressful being away, and it’s stressful being there.”

Kennison surrounded her house with a three-foot wall of sandbags and moved all of her belongings she could fit into a storage unit. Kennison was lucky in that respect: She was already renting a storage unit. Trying to find storage in the Pierre area now is impossible, she said.

“There are no storage units in this town at all,” she said. “I talked to a couple people, and they’re hauling their stuff clear to Aberdeen to get storage.”