You can put spring 2009 in the books as a historic one.

From the west to the east flooding across the northern part of the state broke records and left a memorable mark in many minds.

"I've been here 20 years, never seen the river this high," John Hoven said.

"Been a real deal I tell you, never seen anything like it," Ivan Teigen said.

From the northeast, across to the western part of the state, the same words echoed.

"It's the worst I've seen it," Tuffy Thompson said.

"I've never seen the river like this," Julia Davis said.

The north central part of the state received some of the earlier doses of flooding.

Water made its way over the roads in more than a hundred places in Corson County mid-March. Farther south, homes between Promise and Whitehorse were surrounded as the Moreau River kept rising.

And there were very few ways to travel through half of Wakpala as Oak Creek flowed through it.

"The floor of my house, if it gets wet one more time it's going to fall through," Maurena Plenty Chief said.

"Definitely worried what's going to happen. We're going to have extensive damage, not only to the trailers and the houses but probably to the land also," Eugene Lafranboise said.

People in the northeast were soon saying the same. As snow melted, the Maple River rose and flooded parts of Frederick. The Elm flowed through the streets of Westport.

"As far as our house goes, this is more water we have now than we had in '96-'97, so we're hoping that we're going to be ok," Lisa Ham said.

That same scare faced Aberdeen. Water flooding towns to the north was getting into Moccasin Creek.

"So anybody that had flood problems, water problems in '97, you can probably anticipate having the same kind of problems this year or worse," Freddie Robinson said.

But that didn't happen. The water headed east rather than south, flooding homes like Melissa Weismantel's in Ordway instead.

"It's been a long week, stressful," Weismantel said.

Same for Mike McCafferty whose home at Tacoma Park had already flooded as more and more water was making its way down the James River.

"We're ready for it and you know Mother Nature does her thing and all we can do is fight. We're not going to give up," McCafferty said.

Roads took a big hit too. Bills began piling up for counties and townships.

"With all the flooding damage it's going to be hard to recover it all," said Tim Geist of Bates Township in Brown County.

Meanwhile back in the north central part of the state the Grand River dropped but then rose again in Corson County, higher than before.

"We were calving heifers down by the barn and had to swim my horses down there to get the heifers out and get them in the big country here," John Hoven said.

South of that, the Cheyenne River took out an entire span of black-top road just east of Cherry Creek. And water was covering part of western South Dakota too.

There, it was the Little Missouri rising higher than it had ever been.

"Well I had to feed some cows out of the airplane this morning. There was some I dumped a couple bay bales out to them," Ivan Teigen said.

At Camp Crook, flood stage is 12 feet. This year it got close to 18, cutting people off from their homes.

"I get in the pick-up or the cab of the tractor and I put all my groceries and my purse in the bucket and we go across and go to the house," Julia Davis said.

But the Little Missouri soon dropped after hitting its historic mark. The James River in the eastern part of the state didn't. Adding to local runoff was record amounts of water flowing from North Dakota.

Reservoirs that flow into the James River were dangerously full. So the Army Corps of Engineers was at one time releasing water from them into the river at rate of 3,200 cubic feet per second. The highest that number had ever been in the past was 1,800.

Not only did the James River rise but Sand Lake spilled over, flooding fields and taking out roads. With roads under water, Jeff Braun's once two-mile commute from home to work turned into more than 30 miles.

"This is insane, but just got to roll with it. What else is a person going to do," Braun said.

The trip home ended at the driveway for Josh Grant and his family. The James River forced them into a camper after it invaded their home.

"We tried everything we could and it was just one of those things you know, you can only fight Mother Nature so long you know," Grant said.

And once the River receded somewhat, the fight to clean up began. Grant spent days pumping out his yard and tens of thousands of dollars fixing his house.

On top of the clean up, it was thousands of dollars of lost business at Fisher Grove State Park along the James River in Spink County.

And back in the north central part of the state, which had some of the earlier doses of this spring's historic flooding, people had an early glimpse of how big a mess there was to clean up.

"It's probably an extra hour and a half just to get to where we gotta go," Gregg Mowrer said.

All spring, Mowrer wasn't able to get to his home in anything but a boat or a machine that can drive on land and water.

Sam and Anna Belle Mortenson were stranded on their ranch south of McLaughlin two months during the flood.

"We missed church for over eight weeks and we never, that is something very rare for us," Anna Belle said.

That's the longest they had ever been stranded on the other side of flooded roads.

That’s one first added to many from east to west across South Dakota.

"Even my mom says that and she's been here all her life. She's been here 75 years and even she says that it's the worst it's ever been," Mowrer said.

Cities like Columbia, Westport and Camp Crook saw nearby rivers reach historic highs. Some of the others, such as the Moreau River by Promise and Whitehorse had been higher in the past. But people living there say they never remember a time it's flooded so often within a year.