LANGDON, Mo. (DTN) -- The way most of us view disasters generally depends on the impact they have on our own lives and property. No matter how serious damages are, the sooner that victims of disaster can rebuild and move on, the better life begins to look.

Some natural disasters can take place in a heartbeat. Others last considerably longer. An EF5 tornado struck Joplin, Mo., in May of this year in a space of 38 minutes. Cleanup started once the sky cleared. In August, Hurricane Irene struck the U.S., lasting almost a week. As soon as the wind and rain stopped, work began. But the Missouri River Inundation of 2011 takes the prize for natural disaster longevity, lasting all of 14 weeks here at my home near Langdon.

Finally, most of the water is gone. No one knows for sure how long it will be before all the damage is repaired, or even if some things will ever be fixed -- but we're trying.

Flooding that lasted through two seasons has left in its wake a wave of clean-up that will probably take years. Highway repairs like those done here on Highway 136 looked nearly impossible a few weeks ago. Early predictions were for reopening by Thanksgiving, but today highway traffic is crossing the river again. Even though repairs were done faster than predicted, no one should make the mistake of thinking they were easy. Rock trucks in a steady procession hauled hole-filling limestone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, week after week, to fill in gaps left by the river.

The only thing more impressive than big government roads are big railroads that have been working round the clock since before the end of the flood to restore tracks and trains to service. Even more impressive was when lifting rail beds caused falling flood waters to rise again east of Langdon, railroad representatives met with local citizens to hear complaints. Most who know our story of sustained flooding have been sympathetic.

Even the railroad.

In response to what my neighbors said at the railroad meeting, BNSF changed what they'd been doing and water levels dropped the next day.

Secondary roads are being repaired more slowly as county road districts lack resources and manpower to move as quickly as big government. Just the same, limestone is being hauled onto those back roads as well, filling waist-deep holes like those on a 1.5-mile stretch of the gravel-surfaced road that runs from my house to Langdon. In parts of northwest Atchison County, repairs will take even longer because the river is still flowing across roads there.

FEMA pays the cost of most eligible flood damage repairs on roads like ours, up to 75%, but up and down the valley, early estimates were that damages would exceed $1 billion. If those estimates are correct, that leaves $250 million coming out of local pockets.

We are advised to seek grants covering the other 25%.

By now, most people with homes here have been seen by government officials. Our home has been visited by FEMA representatives, FEMA flood insurance adjusters, and by local emergency management. Those of us with insurance may already have received advances against losses while those without are still working through the process of FEMA aid. Not all homes in the valley are farm homes even though they may have started out that way. The river bottom with its cheap, quiet country living is home to wage earners and retirees too. Many of those people have sustained losses they cannot afford and will never recoup.

When most houses here were built, there were no zoning rules. Things are different now. For one thing, any new construction in a county offering FEMA flood insurance must be elevated above the flood plain. Older homes with 50% or more flood damage are eligible for buyout. That means the homeowner would be paid a portion of the fair market value and the home destroyed rather than being repaired. Houses with less than 50% damage can be repaired as is. Any buyouts are eligible for mitigation, a term that means the county may buy not just the houses, but the land they occupy too. If our county offers mitigation, they will pay for it with grant funding. The Corps of Engineers is also offering to buy flooded land. A good many will never return to their property. Private ownership and the tax base will suffer for it.

When one neighbor asked if FEMA could force her to abandon her 100-year-old farm home, the answer she was given was that FEMA's job is hazard mitigation, that it takes a court of law to compel people.

She took that as a threat that FEMA or the county might take her to court if she doesn't cooperate.

No one here can say we were left high and dry. But economic burdens to our farms by the flood came at a time of $7 corn and $14 soybeans. Any average-sized crop would have meant near-record income. As it is now, all we have to show for it is record flooding. There still aren't accurate numbers for crop acres lost because many crop insurance losses haven't been settled. Perhaps as little as half of all flooded acres have been reported as lost, because fields are just now becoming accessible to crop insurance adjusters, and because farmers who certified planted acres to FSA may not have gone back to report those acres a second time as lost.

Estimates here in Atchison County, where a few levees managed to stand up all summer long, are for acreage losses near 60,000. South of here in Holt County, where more flooding occurred, flooded acres are estimated at about 160,000. If those numbers are accurate, assuming national average yields for two of the most productive agricultural counties in Missouri, crop losses here could be in the neighborhood of $175 million. That doesn't take into account other areas in Missouri, or the states of Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

Closer to home, for me, my landlords and my son, the value of our crops lost is close to $1 million.

In Missouri, county assessors are required to reassess property values up or down as situations change. Farmland with flood damage from washed-out levees must be devalued along with flooded, destroyed buildings and homes. Because of the flood, local taxes and revenue will be lower. That will have a negative impact on local roads, schools and law enforcement to name just a few. Not only are services affected, local jobs are at stake too.

Flooded self-employed farmers were eligible to collect emergency state unemployment for up to six months this summer. Obviously, more than farmers were unemployed when interstate business hubs closed along with major highways. People who made their living working in truck stops and restaurants collected unemployment as detours took business elsewhere. That business is back now that I-29 has reopened, but the full economic impact on rural communities will probably never be known.

Big sand dunes began popping out of the water weeks ago. Today with the water gone they look even bigger. There are no easy ways to dispose of them. Where sand accumulation is not as great, working it into the soil with plows or other tillage implements is an option. Dragline drainage ditches that took decades to establish have practically been erased by sediment. That means more sand and silt to dispose of. Water is currently backed up behind those clogs for miles. Excess sand from ditches and dunes could be disposed of and used to fill washouts along highways, but regulations may prevent that if EPA calls river sand a pollutant.

The river has pushed grain bins off their foundations. In places, thanks to current and waves, I've seen bins that look like crushed aluminum beverage cans. In one field along I-29 in Fremont County, Iowa, an entire bin site lays in a 10-foot-deep hole created by river currents rushing around and between the bins. Metal siding has been torn from farm buildings that are beaten to pieces by the water.

At the bottom of the government repair list seems to be privately owned farmland. Cattails and young cottonwood and willow trees up to 3 feet tall have already sprouted up in my front yard and on other land that last year produced 60-bushel soybeans and 200-bushel corn. Nature doesn't take long to reclaim what family farmers first broke out 150 years ago. Coated with sand, pockmarked by river holes, and plugged with drainage-stopping silt, some places look a little like the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah with water holes and debris mixed in.

In a word, the landscape looks desolate.

FEMA doesn't help with farm buildings and other farm structures. For most, farm assets destroyed are a total loss. We're still waiting to see what if any financial aid for cleanup and land repair will be offered out of USDA.

The "grant" word gets used a lot lately. Most grants come with catches, which means they aren't so much gifts free and clear, as tradeoffs. Low-interest disaster loans have as much paperwork as anything else, but fewer tradeoffs are available for those who qualify. One debt-averse neighbor whose newly remodeled home took in 4 feet of water still has hope for an easy solution.

As we stood on the buckled oak floor of his wife's dream kitchen, he told me, "The heck with that. I've got enough loans, I'm looking for grants."

A contract has been awarded for repair of our levee. But available money won't pay full restoration costs. One thing we know for sure, the repaired levee won't be as good or as tall as the one that washed away. That means just about any high water in the spring will flood our farms and fields again. The Corps of Engineers has said that river flooding next spring is not likely, but the river operations manual has not changed from what it was at the beginning of 2011.

Realistically, with the levees down, even if the Corps determined that additional water release and lower lake levels were necessary, they could not send much more water south without renewing the flood.

Areas that could be flooded next year have already been determined by levee breaches from the gradual, controlled inundation at Gavin's Point this year. But river levels here in 2012 will be determined mostly by two things the government cannot control: snowfall and rain.

Richard Oswald can be reached at richard.oswald@telventdtn.com

(AG/SK)

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