PERCIVAL, Iowa (KMTV) — The population of Percival, Iowa is 53.
"When I was in elementary school, I think it was about 110 or 120," Pat Sheldon recalled.
Recurring flooding has taken a toll on their numbers, but not on their character.
Sheldon took 3 News Now's Mary Nelson around some of his 2,500 acres, pointing to a levy, "There was water coming up and over the top of this. I mean, it was clear to the top."
Since the 2019 flood, they've continuously worked to reclaim what was under water. That process includes burning some areas and bulldozing away sand and new trees. Each Sheldon, including Pat's dad, 81-year-old, Bill, helps. Once those phases are complete, they'll disc the fields several times to get them ready to plant.
"Just work, work, work and lots of extra money to prepping the land that we usually don't have to spend," Pat Sheldon explained.
But he's chosen to invest, and this year, out of the last five, will be as close as they've been to normal.
"We're different in the Midwest. We duck our heads and go to work and get a lot of it done ourselves," he said.
What you can't appreciate about their experience, until you see it, is how much sand the Sheldons took on.
"These big piles you're seeing out here took us just about two years to do," Sheldon said as he motioned to tall, long rows of sand. It's estimated the farm received one million cubic yards - roughly one-and-a-half million tons of sand which was carried by the Missouri River three-quarters of a mile.
Meanwhile, in some areas, there's still water where there wasn't.
"Our floods aren't stereotypical floods. They don't just come up and go down and you go in and clean up. They last for days and days and days, and that's the frustrating part," he shared.
The depth of Sheldon's perspective also comes as a chair of the levy district and as an emergency manager of the time. For all the stress that was - he also has peace.
"We managed to save all the property and belongings that we could and didn't lose a life in the process, so it was a successful failure, I would call it."
Today, symbolism hangs over Sheldon Farms in the form of several bald eagles' nests: a sign of the family's resilience and growth.
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For this story, KMTV focused on 2019, but the Sheldons were also hit hard in 2011. They even lost their home that year.
It may strike you as unusual that a community could see devastating floods so close to one another. The Sheldons and about 350 others don't believe it's happenstance.
A decade ago, in Ideker Farms, Inc. et al. v U.S., the group alleged unlawful taking without just compensation for 'atypical and recurrent' flooding along the river. The case has continued to move through the courts, and now, the federal government has until March 28, 2024 to petition the Supreme Court. What it decides determines what's next. But, for his part, Sheldon believes enough has changed since 2019 in structure and policy where that degree of flooding could be prevented in Percival.
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