That all changed for Gary Prewitt and Marilyn Shands of Vienna, Missouri when the Gasconade River began its rapid rise to 26 feet aboveaverage following this weeks thunderstorms.

“We had to get out when we did or we wouldn’t have made it,”Prewett said Thursday afternoon as he watched the roofs of his office and daughter’s home slip under the muddy rapids flowing below an overpass onHighway 42 East.

Prewett and Shands bought the Indian Ford Resort in 1997 massive floods in 1993 and 1982 drowned the same patch of land.

Despite their obvious loss, friends and relatives of the family who gathered around their disappearing gravel driveway seemed surprisingly upbeat and optimistic about the situation.

“It looks like the water’s going down a bit,” said neighbor Sheila Ruhl as the stick Prewett used to gage the river’s depth actually continued to disappear under the water.

Ruhl moved to Vienna shortly before the 1993 flood and predicts that this one could equal or surpass the damage she witnessed 15 years ago.

“I live on a big hill,” Ruhl said. “Most people won’t build houses in river bottoms and flood plains.”

Drivers passing by Prewett and Shands as they piled their canoes on higher ground pulled over to take snapshots of the scene.

Tammy Shands, Marilyn and Prewett’s daughter, brought her two children to watch their home sink beneath the rising currents.

“My stuff’s minimal. I worry more about them, their bills are much higher,” Shands said about her parents.

Since moving back to Vienna from southern Illinois last year, Tammy hasn’t had the best of luck protecting her belongings. Her home was robbed and ransacked in early 2007, and she fears that it will be completely lost in the coming days as the river is  expected to peak at 30 feet.

“I got the dog out and a bag of clothes, but I left the cat in there. I feel so guilty. I just hope she’s all right,” Shands said.

Along with important documents in Prewett’s office, the Indian Ford Resort owners expect machines, tools and even one of their schoolbuses to be damaged beyond repair.

“I know there’s nothing left,” Marilyn said. “I saw the refrigerator come out of the building that sunk bobbing up and down, floating down the river.”

Prewett said the couple has flood insurance for structural elements of their estate, but they attempted to recover some items that will not be covered.

“You work as long as you can and you get out or you’re dead,” he said. “There ain’t no way to fight that water.”

Tammy and her two children plan to stay with her parents in their home on a hill across the river until they can assess the damage.

Marilyn is eager to start putting herself, her family and her business back together.  “It can only get better from here, I guess,” she said.

Written by Brian Pellot