GARLAND, Texas -- If you needed a lesson on resilience, Jim Day could very well teach it. The owner of the Garland Public Shooting Range is 77 years old and doesn't skip a beat.
"Maybe I'll make it to the 90s, who knows?" Day laughed.
His next project will be his largest. He was in Austin when the storms put crosshairs on his shooting range in Garland. All he needed to see was a picture that showed the water level six feet high.
He recalls a conversation he had with his pastor this week: "He called me and said, 'Jim how do you feel about this?' I said Job 1:26 [sic] "The Lord giveth and Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," Jim said.
He bought and built this range in 1968. He knew full well it was in a flood plain. Forty-nine years and many floods later, his shooting range is still here. "My bride and I kinda started this together," he said.
The damage to the range is so widespread the flood waters literally bent steel. It even washed away their outhouse and surprisingly replaced it with a port-a-potty that didn't belong to them.
Jim hopes to open up the shooting range by next week but in a very limited capacity. For it to be completely done could take weeks, maybe even months.
WFAA asked why he decided to build in a flood plain. His answer was that nobody builds in a flood plain and that makes it the perfect place for a shooting range. "It's a labor of love you might say. I just thank God we have the strength to do it," he said.
Next year the range will celebrate 50 years. Day calls this an opportunity to renovate the range. He took Mother Nature's best shot and is still standing.