JAMESTOWN (AP) - After floodwaters hit more than 500 Stutsman County homes this spring, many residents are drying, bleaching, gutting and rebuilding.

Terry and Jill Shaffer, however, are raising.

The couple and their 6-year-old son, Dillon, own 40 acres just south of Jamestown. At the height of the flood, friends, relatives and others built a 6-foot dike encircling their ranch-style home. The Shaffers have owned it since 2001.

"We probably didn't even know half the people that were here," Terry said.

Fourteen sump pumps worked round the clock to hold back the swollen James River that flows through the Shaffers' back yard.

Water didn't reach the main level, but it did inundate the crawl space beneath the house, flooding the heating and cooling systems and duct work, Terry said. Jill and Dillon moved to a rented home in Jamestown while Terry stayed behind to watch the water and mind the pumps.

For six weeks, the family needed a boat to get to the house.

"It didn't just happen in a weekend and it was over," Jill said. "It's literally been all spring."

To keep water away from the home permanently, the Shaffers are elevating the home and building a new foundation. The home stood on wooden planks 8 feet high last week.

"Hopefully, we'll never see this again, but nobody says this isn't going to happen again next year," Terry said.

The plan is to permanently raise the home 4 feet, he said, to a height above the levels of the 1969 flood.

Since the Shaffers live outside the city and rural Stutsman County has no flood plain map, the Shaffers must base their flood protection decisions on past floods.

The couple considered selling the home, moving and other options. But at no place on the land would the home be drier should water levels rise again, Terry said. They decided to build beneath the home.

To do it, they started with the flooded crawl space. And they didn't have to look far for fill - they used the sand from the remaining sandbags.

From there, they're raising the grade of the house, essentially building a hill beneath it.

Projects this extreme are rare, said Tim Nill, co-principal of Nill Construction. The company is pouring concrete at the Shaffer home, and does various general contracting work in and around Jamestown. Aside from the Shaffers, Nill has only had one other flood-related job.

"This is kind of an exception," he said.

Larry Nannenga, owner of Larry's Electric, said the Shaffer home is one of three jobs the company has lined up. Nannenga expects up to 10 more this fall when the heating season begins.

The Shaffers expect to complete construction in October.

Jill Shaffer said the flood was stressful but the family found ways to cope by exercising, communicating and thinking positive, and relying on others for strength.

"Just knowing that we had the support of so many friends and co-workers," she said. "That's what really got us through."