Residents along the Gasconade River begin to clean up

Record high flood levels on the Gasconade River in Osage County has many cleaning up Friday. The river crested at 34.4 feet. That’s nearly a foot higher than the previous highest level.

Osage County residents said even though in the past day water levels have gone down a few feet, if it keeps raining in southern Missouri, the flood waters may stay awhile or even go back up. Some ABC 17 News they knew the water was going to come up, but never knew it would have gone up that fast. They’re cleaning up now, but are hoping they don’t have to do it again.

There are water marks halfway up the side of the house. Residents say floods are almost an annual event on the river, but they’ve never gotten this high or come up this fast before. Some even have to get into a canoe now just to get to their home. Steve Bescheinen owns Bescheinen Furniture in Loose Creek and has lived on the river for decades. He says he’s never seen flooding this bad before.

“This one was almost like a wall of water coming down, it was coming up so fast,” Bescheinen said.

Bescheinen isn’t the only one in this situation. Others are coming to their home Friday to start cleaning. One homeowner said his house had more than a foot of water inside. The homeowner just got done renovating the entire house and now he’s having to sift through water on the floor. It’s something he never thought would have happened.

“It takes 33.4 (feet) and never got in the house before, so we were thinking it’s not going to break that,” homeowner Mike Mantle said.

But others aren’t going to be as fortunate. The rushing water was so strong, it tore one house from its foundation and washed it down the river. Bescheinen said it’s terrible to see sights like that, but there’s nothing anybody can really do about it.