RebuildPinhook.org is a blog site dedicated to raising awareness of the efforts of displaced residents of Pinhook, Mo to relocate and rebuild their town. Pinhook, a town of about fifty residents, was completely destroyed when the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers elected to operate the Bird’s Point-New Madrid Floodway on May 2, 2011. A two-mile wide opening was blown in the levee in an effort to relieve high water levels at Cairo, Illinois. As a result, the houses of all the residents of Pinhook were flooded by water levels exceeding twenty feet.

Residents, led by Debra Robinson, Chairperson of Pinhook, worked and campaigned for  seven years to gain assistance in relocating and rebuilding their town. While some Pinhookians received new homes built in the spring of 2018, the destroyed town will never be rebuilt at the original Pinhook site and the federal government did not pay any money toward the building of these new homes. The new homes were constructed under the direction of Mennonite Disaster Services with support from Catholic Charities of Southeast Missouri. They were paid for by grant money from the state of Missouri and built by volunteer Amish laborers.

This site continues to honor the tireless work of Debra Robinson and many other displaced Pinhook residents who fought for seven years to get back what had been taken from them. While these new houses are a blessing, they can never replace what the federal government and the Army Corp of Engineers destroyed.

This blog site is authored and operated by Dr. Todd Lawrence (University of St. Thomas) and Dr. Elaine Lawless (University of Missouri, retired) with the consent and collaboration of Debra Robinson and the displaced residents of Pinhook, Mo.