In 30 days, Missouri has gathered almost 11 inches of rain; that's about eight inches above average.

All that rain almost topped the Renns Lake dam in Cole County. Water began to rising Thursday night, threatening Braun and Sons Auto Repair below. It could have been worse had residents not banded together to pump water out of the lake.

"It would have been difficult to clean it up, so that's why we wanted to drain the water level," Braun and Sons service manager Gary Braun said.

Braun said the amount of rain is not at all out of the usual this month. When asked to describe October, he said: "Wet."

It has been wet. Missouri has seen rain for 16 of the past 30 days. That rain has been a nuisance for some and forced others to adjust their schedules.

"Oh, it's an inconvenience, working on cars like this when it's wet all the time," Braun said.

Thursday night was almost more than an inconvenience. The lake got so full last night, it was just about a foot away from spilling over the dam and onto Braun and Sons.

"What we had occur was just a typical slip on the backside. The ground was saturated and weakened there with all the water," Cole County Public Works director Larry Benz said. "We set up some siphon tubes. Last night we had two six-inch pumps running."

As a wet and cold month ends - this October is also the third coolest on record - Braun is optimistic about the future.

"I don't think it's supposed to rain until next Wednesday, so hopefully they can get it down and get it to where they can get the dam repaired," he said.

So far this year, Missouri has weathered about 45 inches of rain - that is 6 inches above the annual average, and the year still has two months left.

The dam at Renns Lake is one of 5,200 dams in Missouri. Dams lower than 35 feet like the one at Renns Lake are not regulated. There are 4,520 unregulated dams in Missouri.