Pinhook is a story of perseverance, community

More than just neighbors, the folks who lived in the tiny black community of Pinhook, Missouri, were essentially family.

The tiny village was destroyed in 2011 by the record-breaking Mississippi River flood. Pinhook resided in a flood plain that was protected by a levee but designed, along with some 130,000 acres, to act as an emergency spillway when the river reached historical levels.

An agonizing decision was made in 2011 to intentionally blow the levee, destroying Pinhook, farmland and a total of 100 homes.

Last month, eight former Pinhook residents, including the former chairwoman, and their families held a groundbreaking ceremony in Sikeston to build a new neighborhood in Sikeston's Indian Hills subdivision, where seven homes are being built, each with 1,250 square feet. Two more homes will be built elsewhere, another in Sikeston and one in Charleston.

As Mark Bliss reported, Debra Robinson Tarver, the former chairwoman, looked across the street at the site of her new home where a concrete foundation is taking shape.

An emotional Tarver said, "I am not going to cry."

Various volunteer groups and state agencies have partnered in the development to provide housing for about 10 former residents, Bliss reported. The Missouri Department of Economic Development awarded a $450,000 block grant to the village to buy the land and help with construction costs.

These are good people who suffered the wrath of a major natural disaster. They paid the price so that other areas up river could be spared.

They had federal flood insurance, but received no insurance payments because the 2011 flood was not a natural occurrence. It happened because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blasted three holes in the levee.

We're happy to see that this tight group finally found solutions and that most of them will be living close together, without the fear of another record-breaking flood threatening their homes.