Town suffers multiple setbacks

In a town where City Hall is located on a gravel road, Wayne and Pauline Burriss sit in one of the last remaining public buildings and lay out pictures of the destruction.

Things were different when the Burrisses first moved to Novinger in 1974. There was a drug store, a bank, a car wash. They could buy groceries without traveling to Kirksville. A slaughterhouse provided jobs for some of the locals.

But they didn't realize at the time that things were heading downhill. Businesses went under. People moved out.

And then - with a slumping economy in a vulnerable community - came a run of disasters.

"There's hardly anything of the old Novinger left," Pauline Burriss said.

The last two and a half years have taken their toll.

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Pauline is sifting through photos of the city of Novinger, which is now flooded. Farmlands have become lakes, and parking lots are swimming pools.

Steady rains pounded the area in June 2008, and flooded the Chariton River to its third highest stage ever at 28.44 feet, more than two feet above what is considered a "major flood stage," according to the National Weather Service website.

"I've never seen one that bad before," said Wayne, mayor of Novinger at the time of the flood. "It was the biggest [flood] that this area has ever seen."

Residents of seven houses were initially displaced. Some left town for good. Others moved to higher ground in Novinger.

Still others, lacking the money to move out or repair, stayed in homes located in areas where flooding could, and likely would, happen again.

About 11 months had passed when disaster number two came. A tornado struck the southern portion of Novinger on May 13, 2009, causing damage to more than 50 houses. The Ross building, a brick building that's been a constant in Novinger's business district since the 1800s, disintegrated under the high winds.

And then, by the accounts of nearly anyone around at the time of the event, something beautiful occurred - something different.

"It was amazing, the community response," said David Kittle, local farmer and volunteer firefighter. "And we had other people come in to help us. We pretty well got it cleaned up in a timely and organized manner."

By the end of May 15, the streets were cleared. A community was united.

But the next day, flooding again hit the area, with water levels rising to more than 25 feet.

As quickly as Novinger had come together to face the tornado damage, it was devastated by the second major flood in two years.

"No question about it, it's ...," Pauline said, pausing and looking up from the pictures of June 2008 laid out on the table in front of her. "It's really bad. The streets are bad. Some of the houses never did get fixed back up the way they should have been fixed. It hurt a lot of people."

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The story might start in 2008, but the decline of Novinger's economy can be linked all the way back to the Great Depression.

Before that, Novinger was a coal-mining town of 1,743 people in 1920, according to "A Book of Adair County History." But when the Depression forced many of the mines to close, the population more than cut in half within a ten-year period.

Since then, there has been a slow decrease from 846 people in 1930 to 534 at the time of the 2000 Census, with the economy falling with the population.

With major floods hitting the last two years, and a minor but substantial flood in 2010, most farmers have not harvested significant amounts of crops for three straight seasons.

"Even if we have three or four good years, I'll still be paying off  '08, '09 and 2010," Kittle said.

Outside of the farming industry, jobs are scarce in Novinger. Most employed residents commute to nearby towns like Kirksville or Milan, Mayor Jeff Dodson said.

Dodson, who was elected three weeks before last year's tornado, said his main goal always had been to clean up the streets and run-down houses throughout the town. But dealing with the aftermath of natural disasters has gotten in the way.

Dodson remains optimistic. He said he believes Novinger is a strong community that can turn its situation around. The first step, he said, is to get the city cleaned up, which will require help from federal and state funding.

"Then, that said, in the private sector people are going to have to regain a belief in the community - that we can reach out and actually do some things that will prosper," Dodson said.

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Late on Saturday night, Sept. 11, more than two years after the initial flood, more than one year after the tornado and second flood, Dodson finished up his work at West Chariton Fellowship, where he is the minister.

Dodson said that at 12:02 a.m. Sept. 12, approximately 30 minutes after he had gotten home, he received a call from a Novinger resident. A building that housed four local businesses, across the street from Dodson's church, was in flames.

When he got to the scene, Dodson called the Fire Department to see where they were. As it turned out, despite approximately 20 people in the street watching the fire, Dodson was the first to call for emergency assistance.

By the time firefighters arrived, there was nothing they could do to stop the flames from destroying the entire building.

Former mayor Wayne Burriss said his immediate reaction was that this was a loss that will reverberate through the city for months, possibly years, to come.

"The only thing holding this town together right now is the school," Wayne said. "We lose the school, we lose the town."

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On a quiet Wednesday afternoon after the smoke has cleared in Novinger's depleted business district, Gail Greathouse is tidying the dining area of the dimly lit Chevy's Bar and Grill.

The restaurant, of which Greathouse is a manager, has served as a sanctuary for community residents, even though the burnt ruins and vacant lots left from tornado and fire damage are visible from the sidewalk in front of Chevy's.