For the second time in two years, CeCe Jean Saunders was rebuilding.<\/p>\n
Last July, floodwaters inundated the dance and cheerleading studio that Ms. Saunders runs in Kerrville, Texas. It was the first time that the studio, a little blue building on the banks of the Guadalupe River, had taken on water in its 40 years.<\/p>\n
It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. Repairs totaled about $100,000.<\/p>\n
Then this week, it happened again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe water came last year from behind us,\u201d Ms. Saunders said in an interview on Friday as volunteers shoveled debris and muck from inside the studio. \u201cThis year, it just came from everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The river water rushed through the property on Thursday morning, when it was still dark. It ripped away the prop shed, with its pompoms and boas and homemade costumes, and flooded the dance studio. It swept under the expensive wooden cheer floor, which was just replaced after last year\u2019s flood.<\/p>\n
A small boy in a trucker hat and cowboy boots helped pick up trash. A friend offered to lend a power washer. A woman, wearing all pink, arrived with hot food wrapped in tin foil.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod is good,\u201d she said, gesturing to the volunteers who showed up to help. \u201cI mean, look at this. Look at how many people are here today. We\u2019ve got generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The studio has been in Ms. Saunders\u2019s family since she and her mother, Peggy Anne Hannemann, began teaching there, on the banks of the river, in the 1980s. Her father, Fred, operated a barbershop nearby. She began teaching cheer in the 1990s. The studio now has around 350 students, she said.<\/p>\n
Inside the soiled studio on Friday, Taylen Long, 7, helped sweep away flood water. She takes cheer, tap and jazz classes and wanted everyone around to know she loves her teachers. Her mother, Shyla, also took tap and cheer classes at the studio.<\/p>\n
The cleanup work wasn\u2019t all that difficult, Taylen assured her mother. \u201cNot as hard as cheer!\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n
Ms. Saunders said she was grateful to be dealing with only the the loss of things \u2014 and not any loss of life. A blessing.<\/p>\n
She said she had lost her cool only once amid the damage and chaos, when she thought a massive concrete barber pole that used to stand outside her dad\u2019s shop had disappeared in the flood. Minutes later, she found it on the banks of the river. Another blessing.<\/p>\n