The Flood

The terrible images and stories coming out of Iowa bring back some powerful memories. In 1990 I was the managing editor of a small daily newspaper in Enterprise, Ala. One Friday after work I was supposed to head east to spend the weekend with my girlfriend in Valdosta. But the skies opened up in the early afternoon and a tremendous rain started. It was coming down so hard a lot of us stopped working and went to the door or windows to watch. The thing is, it didn't stop. About 5:30 pm I started east on US 84. It was raining so hard I had to slow down to a crawl, not a good thing when you're starting a three-hour drive.
I made it a few miles east of town in a torrent of water, then made the decision to go back to Enterprise. I called my girlfriend and told her I might not make it that night. She was, shall we say, not happy.
It continued to pour rain that evening and on into the night.
Our second largest coverage area was Elba, Ala. Elba was small town nestled against the Pea River, about 15 miles west of Enterprise on US 84. I don't remember if I got word about the leveee giving way that evening or the following morning, but I got over there very early on Saturday.
It was a stunning sight.
From the hillside next to town, with dozens of other people milling around, I looked out over the town. Flood waters had engulfed the little city. A break in the levee north of town had directed billions of gallons of water inside the structure. AFter the rupture, the levee no longer protected the wown. Instead it denied the surging waters a natural exit. Little Elba filled up like a teacup.
Shocked but with a job to do, I hoodwinked my way aboard a rescue boat and spent the rest of the day tooling around the town taking photos and talking to residents. Fortunately, no one had died. But they easily could have. The water level downtown rose to the second floor windows of the charming old city hall. I remember our boat going across the high school football field, where only the uppermost seats in the grandstand remained above the flood waters.
(I remember walking on part of the levee and seeing snakes and vermin lying next to each other, exhausted from the efforts that got them to this high ground.)
Being an inexperienced photographer I shot all of my film way too early, so I put my camera away and helped with rescue efforts. We didn't pick up any people, but we took a pair of beautiful big dogs to safety. Their owner had put them in the back of a pickup truck in his front yard, assuming (incorrectly) the water wouldn't get that high and he could get them later. When we found them, the two big beauties were in cold water up to their chests and in shock. We took them to high ground.
Later, out of the boat, I wandered through the hillside crowd talking to people who had abandoned their homes -- many doing so in the middle of the night. I remember initially being amazed at how stoic most of these victims were, but the more I listened I realized that what I first thought was stoicism was actually shock. The enormity of their loss had either not yet hit or had overwhelmed them.
I tried to keep their loss in mind over the next few days as I joined my tiny staff in working feverishly to put out our little newspaper. I remember long, long days. We did as much as we could -- though not nearly enough -- and eventually received a national award for our flood coverage.
Of all the memories I have of that time, the most haunting today remains a moment I shared with a woman on the hillside east of town. She had abandoned her home during the night, scooping up her kids and little else. From our safe perch near US 84, she pointed to the roof of the house she had lived in for years, the house which held all her possessions. The roof was all that was above the filthy water.
At first she answered my questions with a mix of toughness and humor, but as I looked on, the scope of her personal loss finally struck her. Her calm demeanor crumbled. Her determined, almost heroic, look dissolved. The tears begin to flow and she sobbed.
I took her hand and she looked at me, hoping desperately that I had some magic answer for her. Something. Anything.
I dug a crumpled $20 out of my pocket and gave it to her. "For supper," I said.
I felt like a fool. But she took it, thanked me and walked away.
I have never felt so useless.