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Edited on Wed May-05-10 06:46 AM by Fly by night
Good morning, all y'all. It is still too dark outside for me to get back to work on my water system (broken five days and counting), to rearrange and re-anchor the cypress boards that once framed my Garden's raised beds (one-third of which are now meandering toward New Orleans) and to finish unclogging the culverts that filled with five feet of rock and less weighty debris, turning my driveway into a raging river. But it is not too dark to share our recent world-view shape-shifting experience here in the middle of Tennessee.
We are blessed.
Saturday afternoon, as the first six inches of rain rearranged our roadways (there would be 21 more inches before the storms moved on a day later), it took me three hours to make it home from Nashville. One road after another was blocked with rock slides or flooded too deep to risk driving through or covered with downed trees whose roots just couldn't hold on any longer. After several hours of effort, I made it to within four miles of my farm, only to be stopped once again by the absence of a bridge across a usually minor stream, a bridge that all of us took for granted -- until it was no longer there. One more back-track, once again working to find higher (less obstructed) ground, until -- at last -- I made it to my driveway. Or should I say, the entrance to the mini-Grand Canyon that my driveway had become.
I parked my truck at the far end of my farm (where, on Sunday, it was almost picked up and sent its own merry way downstream) and made my way -- in the dusky aftermath of the first eleven inches of rain -- through the ravines and gullies that my driveway had become. Some of the "holes" were five feet deep, scowered to the bedrock. Every one of my culverts was exposed except for the final one. But that one was also blocked, so the remaining torrent flowed several feet high across the top, making the wade across that expanse a challenge to see how my knees would hold up (and my balance would remain) in the midst of water that splashed up above my waist.
I got home after dark to find my Garden soaked but intact, no power in the house and two very confused dogs, soaked to the bone and wanting ever so much to be let inside. I understood because I too wanted some dry place and so I let them in. It took an hour to find a candle, lighting one wood match after another until a long-forgotten gift (a vanilla-scented candle in a can) appeared. That first night, I went to bed early, lulled to sleep by the mountain river that ran just beyond my front porch, thinking that the worst was over.
Oh how wrong I was.
On Sunday, the rain started again just after dawn and it did not stop. Hard on my tin roof, the rain came and came and kept coming. Between dawn and early afternoon, another twelve inches fell, enough to strain the sides of the plastic container I was using to measure the flood. I emptied the container and -- when I looked again -- another four inches had accumulated in that bucket. (All told, 27 inches of rain fell in 27 hours on my farm.)
The ground, already saturated, could do nothing to mediate the force of so much water. Every new drop of it that fell on Sunday came rushing by my front porch, carrying with it debris that had lined my farm's creek beds for years, now broken loose and on the move. It all seemed so fascinating and other-worldly -- until I noticed that some of the debris included my Garden watering can and plastic mulch buckets. The stream (the river) had breeched the creek banks and was now working its way toward me, first flooding and then breaking loose the cypress planks that had held my hundred foot-long raised beds for a dozen years. Now those 16 foot long 2 X 12 boards were just more missles flying South. Along with my early broccoli and onions.
There is a footbridge across the creek in front of my house, built ten feet above the (usual) creek bed, that became the next target of my focus to save the familiar. Even though the water was still a foot or so below the bridge, I knew that would not remain for long. It was clear I might need my chainsaw, just in case some cuttable debris wedged on the bridge. The problem was, that chainsaw was still in my truck. Even though the truck was only a quarter-mile away, none of the creeks were now passable. So my constant companion Thunder, a rescued German Shepherd, and I made the long trip up one ridge and down another to get the saw (and to marvel at the waters lapping against my truck) and then retraced our steps back home. Just in time to see the 60 foot poplar tree -- the one that anchored the bank by my Garden -- give way and lend its creekbank-scouring force to the flood. That tree quickly wedged against my footbridge, backing up the water (and the force it possessed) behind that bridge, bringing the water level higher and higher into the Garden.
Though in retrospect it may not have been wise to walk out on that footbridge with so much force wanting to dislodge it, I took the saw and cut the top one-third of the massive tree, freeing its main trunk to fall into the flood. As massive as the tree was, I thought it would simply float to the side of the creek. But the water's power was immeasureable and up to the task of removing anything in its way. As soon as the tree was cut loose, its sharp-pointed top faced downstream and, with its five foot wide rootball acting as a sail, that tree shot downstream as if it were a child's summertime scrapwood boat. That image, of my anchor tree setting sail for the coast, will remain the iconic memory of the flood.
By Sunday afternoon, the falling fury faltered and I could make my way to the main road on foot. There I hooked up with neighbors whose homes were higher up on the ridge, and learned that my little hamlet (Fly, TN) was now all under water. Logs from the sawmill were scattered across the bottomland, the heavy metal dumpsters at our local convenience station were lumbering landing craft bouncing into flooded cars and trucks, the solid-rock bank of one bluff had given way. I learned that a neighbor's dam -- holding back a 30 acre lake -- had given way. Fortunately for us the Natchez Trace Parkway (built, like the early settlers road, on the highest ridges in the area) remained our connection to the outside world. All other roads (and many other bridges) were no longer, whole sections of asphalt peeled from the ground and gone.
But, even as the reality of what had just happened continued to surround us, so did the innate urge to help each other. One close neighbor offered to bring his tractor to pull my truck out of harm's way. When we did that and the neighbor got a look at my new Grand Canyon driveway, he offered to return on Monday with his bull-dozer. He did that and spent several hours returning my driveway to a semblence of its former self (at no charge). Even before he came, on Sunday evening when the worst was still obvious, the local electric company crew braved their way into my house, their flashlight beams bouncing from the low clouds to the all-around-us water, and got my power restored. A small miracle, that.
It is now the beginning of the third day post-Flood and the light outside is now enough for me to get back to work. My spring hole had four feet of creek gravel in it, and even after shoveling all of that out, my water system is still not working. But I know how to prime the pump and to check the lines, and I will keep doing that today until potable water is not just nearby but flowing from the faucets in my house. Until it is, I will bathe in the creek and carry drinking water back to the house (as I did for years when I first moved here, back when I was a younger man.) I will rebuild my Garden beds, moving the few vegetables whose roots did not let go to higher ground so that -- again this year -- I can feed a dozen families from the surplus. I will marvel at the newly scoured limestone rock shelves now exposed on my walk down to the spring, my new beach-front property where once underbrush and old fence had stood.
I will enjoy the cool air and the clear sky and the re-setting of my priorities as only a five hundred year flood can do. Not far away, homes and cars are still underwater and city folk are still coming to realize just what they've lost and how alone they are. Here in my deep hollow home, I am thankful for everything I still have. Not just a roof over my head and drinking water within walking distance. Not just a Garden that, though smaller, is still capable of much abundance if I will only add the "secret ingredients" (my bare footprints and my brow-sweat) that will restore it.
I am thankful for neighbors who reach out, by instinct, to help when help is needed. To be part of a community that is not just a small place on the map, but an island of caring, concerned and competent people here to help each other. Country men and women who will survive.
So that's my early morning tale, from deep in my well-watered woods. I hope this long note finds all of you safe and warm and thankful for all you have. Here in middle Tennessee, we may have less than we had last week. But the important things -- the essential things -- still remain. No flood can wash away friendship and the connectedness of life in this close-knit small backwoods community -- it can only polish it to a bright and lasting luster.
Now back to work. Peace out. Y'all come.
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