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Rushford, Minn. (AP) ― It has been days since the flood waters receded, revealing the mess their lives have become.

The floors of their Victorian home in town were buckled, the walls ripped out at the knees, the basement filled with raw sewage. At their farm outside town, rivers tore 6-foot-deep gullies into fields, turned pastures into beaches, uprooted culverts, toppled fences and scattered cattle and sheep into surrounding forests and bluffs.

Hours of tedious meetings with Red Cross and FEMA workers led to, well, nothing. The kids were shipped to the Twin Cities with Grandma to recover and prepare for the start of school, even though they still have nowhere to live once school starts.

So Kelley O'Neil wasn't surprised when two county workers came up the walk Aug. 28 with yellow vests that read: "Behavioral Health."

"They had our name and an address on a piece of paper," he said the next day, while trying to round up his cattle. "We had a hard time yesterday."

As the initial shock wears off from one of the larger floods in state history, which gutted parts of southeastern Minnesota, many face the emotional flotsam and daunting realities of the job ahead, and questioning whether they are up for it.

"You start to hear that people are ready to throw in the towel," said O'Neil's wife, Cindy Wolf. "After a while, it gets contagious."

On Aug. 27, O'Neil and Wolf and their daughters, Haley, 11, Hanna, 9, and Harper, 7, crammed into a booth at a McDonald's in Winona, a temporary respite from tragedy.

O'Neil wore a rain slicker, shorts and muddy boots. Wolf, a veterinarian, tried to do some business and check e-mails. But when the restaurant declined to let them tap into the Wi-Fi, "I had a little meltdown," Wolf said.

It was small moments like this, and the overwhelming nature of their problems, that built up like flood waters over the week.

The waiting. The paperwork. The physical exertion. The endless phone calls to government agencies. The search for a new home. Even a trip to the orthodontist for one of the girls. Then Wolf had to call her employer, the University of Minnesota, to request a leave of absence.

"You get up in the morning, and you don't know what to do," Wolf said quietly. "So you divide and conquer."

An hour later, they were back at their century-old house, giving the girls their first look at the destruction. O'Neil hugged Haley as his eyes filled with tears.

"The kids think we have it pretty bad," he said. "But I also wanted them to see the town, to show them that others have it worse than we do."

Inside, friends were in control. Dick Tondra, father of Wolf's friend from Iowa, lugged pails of debris to the street. Friend Ray Dretske and Brad Ellings, the girls' physical education teacher from Winona Montessori, ripped up warped floorboards.

"Cindy's not sure if she wants to save the original wood or not, so we are making that decision for her," said Dretske. "At a time like this, it becomes beneficial to take decisions away from them, even if they're the wrong ones. They are the nicest people in the world, and that makes it easy to drop everything and help them."

The morning of the 28th, Wolf sat on the stairs of the house they bought 14 years ago. The front porch was packed with dressers, lamps and chairs. Bottles of glitter nail polish were strewn about the yard. An unsoiled American flag fluttered overhead.

She had made a list of tasks for the day on a small pad. Visit Red Cross. Check on apartment in Winona. Call about farm assistance. Consider finding a trailer to live in on the farm. Call kids.

Wolf made one call after another. Her mood turned somber; she barely spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said at one point. "I'm not usually like this."

The night before, they were in Winona to find a place to live. But the neighborhood they could afford was filled with college students; many were out on porches partying, smoking.

"I remember what college was like," she said. "I guess I don't think that's a good place to bring my daughters. So that's fallen through."

She waited at the Red Cross shelter, sitting alone, staring at the floor. In order to get assistance, she had to prove it was their farm, their house. But everything was gone, meaning she had to get an electric bill at City Hall. Then she had to drive to Lewiston for insurance papers.

"Like I have nothing better to do," she said softly. "I appreciate the volunteers, but I've been talking to trainees all day, and there's a lot of information they just don't know."

As they worked separately all day, O'Neil knew Grandma would pamper the kids, but he worried about his wife. "I think she saw our neighbor (Norm Ebner) as her inspiration," said O'Neil. "She kept saying, 'He's 86; if he can rebuild, we can do it.'

"But this morning he told her he was selling and moving into a nursing home, and it's affecting her," said O'Neil.

So when O'Neil saw the mental health counselors coming up the walk, he was relieved. "They talked to her," he said. "They got her to cry. That's important."

Later, O'Neil yelled at his cattle from atop a four-wheeler, "Boss! Boooooosssss!"

Floods had demolished fences and stranded them. The 150 cows were trapped in the valley. They had plenty of water, but grass ran out two days before. They were headed for market next week and had lost weight.

Meanwhile, many of his 1,500 sheep ran for the hills, where there was plenty of food but no water. This morning began the long process of herding them all back. Roads were "slid shut" with mud.

They bought this farm partly for the picturesque creek running through it, but "it got wild on us," said Wolf.

When the cows crowded into a corner, O'Neil released his dogs, Zack and Whale.

"Go get 'em," he said.

The dogs dashed through the fence and moved the cattle through the gate and up a rock-strewn hillside toward the tall grass.

"Good dogs! Good dogs!"

The cattle set upon the grass voraciously. O'Neil, a quiet but sometimes profound man, paused to reflect about his home and his land. They had all been sleeping in the farm office behind the sheep shed, but he knows it can't continue.

"I guess I was in denial about how much time it would take to remove the 'un' from uninhabitable," he said. "I have lived in more Spartan places; it's OK. But for Cindy and the girls, the home is a symbol of family. We need to find something soon."

Driving back to get fresh dogs to chase the sheep, the sun came out, and he smiled. "The sun always makes a difference," he said.

Then O'Neil pointed to a fallen tree.

"That's my inspiration," he said. "Two years ago that cherry tree was knocked down. But it's got just enough roots in the earth that it still blooms. That's what I have to go on."

By JON TEVLIN
Star Tribune of Minneapolis

(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)