Bill Bender has a new mobile home to replace the one he lost on a summer night when a wall of water washed away all he owned except his Kia Sephia, a teapot and a porcelain egg.

Tightly packed cinder blocks fill the hole ripped open by the surging floodwaters in Helen Reinhardt's basement wall, but she can't replace the cherished antique plates, dishes and crocks she lost to the storm.

And Bob Field rebuilt his home and garage after losing five vehicles to the raging waters and mud. But the house to his left was demolished and the next house over is abandoned.

"Every day I do some flood-related cleanup. Every day," Field said on a recent humid day. "It would be much easier to move, as many did."

It has been one year since torrential rains led to flash flooding that ripped through communities along Cattaraugus Creek in southern Erie and northern Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties.

The National Guard troops and firefighters are gone, the Red Cross centers have closed and the mud and debris are cleared from homes and roads. But the storm's imprint remains.

"Everybody uses the flood as a reference now. There's stuff before the flood and stuff after the flood," said Fred Johnson, director of Love Inc. -- or Love In the Name of Christ -- a church-backed organization in Gowanda that was deeply involved in the response to the flood.

A cluster of storms

Millions of dollars are flowing into Silver Creek, Gowanda and the other storm-ravaged locales in the form of insurance settlements, federal housing aid and low-interest loans.

Still, many residents left their homes, while some businesses moved or closed altogether.

Much work remains to fix the Gowanda reservoir, to reopen Tri-County Memorial Hospital and to build a new Silver Creek Department of Public Works.

Residents and officials say they get nervous during big storms now, but they are better prepared for the next disaster.

"I think we would be much more organized to set up a command center very quickly," said Julius Leone, director of emergency services for Chautauqua County.

Between 7 and 8 p.m. on a hot and humid Sunday exactly one year ago -- Aug. 9, 2009 -- a line of thunderstorms developed and began to move southeast from Niagara County, dumping up to an inch of rain, said Steve McLaughlin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

As the line of storms moved over northern Chautauqua and southern Erie counties, it crashed into a cluster of storms moving east from Lake Erie.

Between 11 p.m. and midnight, 4 inches of rain fell in parts of the region, with a total of 7 or 8 inches for the day. "Those are really unprecedented amounts in our area," he said.

With that much rain falling in an area with such steep terrain, there's nowhere for the water to go except into Cattaraugus Creek and its tributaries -- and the surrounding towns.

Thatcher and Grannis brooks in Gowanda and Silver and Walnut creeks in Silver Creek all overflowed their banks.

Powerful streams of water ripped out foundations, lifted up trucks, buckled roads and shoved aside mobile homes.

Flooding was blamed for two deaths. An 80-year-old Gowanda man drowned late on Aug. 9 after wading out to check on a flooded bridge over Thatcher Brook. Another man died Aug. 10 of an apparent heart attack after flooding kept emergency crews from reaching him.

The death toll could have been much higher. Bill Bender and the other residents of the Silver Village mobile home park all escaped harm that night even as flooding destroyed the park's homes.

Barb Amrozowicz was watching the creek rise late on Aug. 9 and into the early hours of Aug. 10. By about 1:30 a.m. the flood water at the lowest point in the park was up to her ankles.

She called to her son and her grandson, who helped her bang on the doors of the other homes to warn residents to get out. Amrozowicz grabbed Hannah, her dachshund, and joined the other residents who walked and drove out of the park.

"We had 67 get out safely. We did a head count across the street. We lost no animals, either," she said.

They heard loud rumbling as the floodwaters smashed into the mobile homes. "The mobiles along the creek were rolling one into each other like dominoes," Amrozowicz said.

About 50 patients and staff were evacuated from Gowanda's Tri-County Hospital, which lost power and had 2 feet of water on its ground floor.

Every crack and crevice

The sun rose on the morning of Aug. 10 to reveal scenes of mud-filled streets, massive potholes and damaged bridges.

"Water and mud are so unforgiving. They get into everything -- every crack, every crevice, everywhere," said Leone, the emergency services official.

Local governments, volunteer fire companies, groups such as the Red Cross and churches poured their resources into the disaster response and cleanup.

One year later, residents and officials continue to praise how the community came together to respond to the disaster.

As home and business owners mucked out their basements and lugged waterlogged furniture to the curb, they waited to find out whether the federal government would step in to reimburse them for their losses.

Eventually officials announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would reimburse homeowners and business owners for specific losses and pay back local governments for storm-related costs.

As the weeks and months went on, with the region's attention turned elsewhere, residents continued putting back the pieces of their homes and lives.

Reinhardt's home at the corner of South Chapel and Walnut streets was condemned, and it was eight months before she was able to move back into the refurbished house. She did not have flood insurance, but FEMA gave her $16,000 to help pay for repairs to her wall, a new washer and dryer and other items.

Reinhardt is in her late 60s and she is not worried about another bad flood hitting Gowanda.

"By then, I'll be in a nursing home," she said.

All 35 mobile homes in Silver Village had to be removed following the storm. The park has 21 homes now, and 15 were to be occupied by this month.

People who live there are coming across photos, silverware and other items lost in the flooding as they dig up the ground at the park.

In Gowanda, flooding led to a game of "musical storefronts," said Terry Hubbard, co-owner of Gabel Bros. Furniture, with some West Main Street businesses closing or moving.

Over on Walnut Street, where Thatcher Brook overflowed its banks and surged through the street, Field has redone his garage and installed new carpeting and wood flooring on the first floor of his home.

The mud that was dumped onto his lawn and into his garage ruined five of his cars and trucks that night.

He received some money from his car insurers and from FEMA, but he had no flood insurance and said he probably ended up spending $40,000 of his own money to repair damage.

"At 61, I can't do it again. I can't fight another flood," Field said.

An empty field

One house to Field's left is an empty field now, and the house to the left of that is abandoned, with yellow police tape stretched across the porch. Dried splatters of mud still reach 4 feet high on the door.

That home belonged to Al Lindquist, who told a Buffalo News reporter days after the storm that he had lived through the floods of 1986 and 1998.

"This is worse. There won't be a fourth time," he said then.

For those who stayed behind, work continues this summer.

Crews were working on the rectory and the parish center of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Silver Creek late last month. Contractors recently installed a new parking lot. The carpeting in the aisle of the church hall was ripped out, every pew and wooden door and the wooden altar had to be removed and refinished and the floor and walls were cleaned.

Silver Creek was forced to move its Department of Public Works because FEMA deemed the current North Main Street location unsafe for rebuilding. The department has been working temporarily out of a former warehouse and the village is awaiting FEMA approval to purchase this site.

A long year

Tri-County Memorial Hospital remains closed. Most of its programs are being offered in various locations outside Gowanda. FEMA has agreed to pay $14 million of the estimated $18.5 million cost to raze the abandoned hospital and build a new, smaller hospital at another site.

Gowanda's reservoir, which was closed following the flooding, was put back into operation early this year. Contractors have cleared out silt and debris from the reservoir but they continue to work on repairs to the pump house and on the construction of a debris-catching lagoon, said Mike Hutchinson, public works superintendent for Gowanda.

The repairs to Gowanda's water system and Village Hall, reconstruction of roads wiped out in the storm and ongoing work to stabilize Thatcher Brook will cost $4.8 million and should be completed by February, Hutchinson said.

"It's been a long year," he said.

Silver Creek officials said they plan to install large stones known as "rip rap" along the banks of Walnut and Silver creeks in several locations.

If this work is done to protect the creek banks, Silver Creek Mayor Kurt Lindstrom said, then a similar storm event would not cause the same level of destructive flooding.

On the anniversary of the flooding, residents and organizations are marking the occasion in different ways.

Today, Our Lady of Mount Carmel will hold a night Mass.

Silver Village slated a "Flood Away Party," as Amrozowicz put it, on Sunday.

And Gowanda Pharmacy planned a hot dog fundraiser for the new hospital.

The pharmacy sells a sign that just might sum up the community's attitude toward the storm: "Life isn't about surviving the storm, but learning to dance in the rain."

swatson@buffnews.comnull