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Today, his home is barely standing, and Plein, like many others in southeastern Minnesota, is slowly putting the pieces back together as help drifts in and out of the areas affected by the August floods.
Saturday’s help came by the semi-load: 1,500 sheets of drywall, 25,000 feet of tape, 450 pounds of screws and nails, and 250 gallons of drywall mud. And more than 125 volunteer laborers.
The help came courtesy of a group of churches, organized by Woodbury Lutheran Church in the Twin Cities.
Plein picked up 30 sheets of drywall for his home, which endured a flood in 1991 and nearly gave out this time.
A volunteer asked if he needed anything else — a truck to haul or people to help lift.
About 60 boys from Woodbury Lutheran arrived by bus to clear debris from nearby fields and stream banks.
Vicki Strong, the disaster relief coordinator at Woodbury Lutheran, said that the church groups were there to help rebuild homes, and more importantly, to build new relationships.
“It’s not just about the Sheetrock,” Strong said. “You form relationships. The sense of loss that you see in them —we’re all just a storm away from being like that.”
One volunteer came from Ocean Springs, Miss., where Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home two years ago.
Dana Adkins got help from Woodbury Lutheran volunteers, who have made 29 trips to the Gulf area over two years. When she heard about the floods in Minnesota, she called Strong and signed up to volunteer.
Adkins said that this was her way of paying back and paying forward.
“We were so devastated by Katrina. Any time this happens, our hearts go out,” she said.
Adkins led the Ocean Springs community in collecting donations to help Stockton residents rebuild. The fourth- and fifth-grade Sunday school classes, who understand how devastating a storm can be, made cards of encouragement.
“There was no say to say thank you, just to pay it forward,” Adkins said.
The connections that hurricane victims such as Adkins made with Woodbury Lutheran members are sturdy. Strong wants to make these same connections with the Stockton community and has already done so with Grace Lutheran Church.
The Rev. Jesse Krusemark, who began his pastoral service at Grace Lutheran this summer, said the flood has been “a blessing in disguise.”
Married just one week before the storm, he had to adjust quickly with four feet of water under him at the parsonage and a town flooded by despair.
As Krusemark stood near the Community Center on Saturday, he said the amount of work being put into rebuilding has given him “an opportunity to be in the community” and get to know church members better.
Grace Lutheran provided lunch for Saturday’s workers.
Church members and volunteers have traveled from Woodbury about twice a week since the floods happened, Strong said. She said it’s important to keep helping because help too easily runs dry.
“Once people get through cleanup, everything stops,” she said. “You lose money and volunteers lose interest.”
Plein has already started to feel the help dry up.
He continues to live under the same roof that has sheltered him for more than 20 years and through two floods.
It is the same roof that he clung to, sending flashlight signals to neighbors. The roof he had to be coaxed down from four hours later because he was “so petrified and frozen.”
Although Plein picked up drywall Saturday, he was not quite ready to put it up. The day’s tasks included installing insulation and, hopefully, starting to tear the old walls down so the new walls can go up.
Strong said that more trips are planned to Stockton to help Plein and others rebuild.
