The flood in KY brings back a lot of trauma and memories from 1977.
Jimmy Carter was the President.
I was driving from Nashville back to the mountains of KY and it rained my entire trip. The roof of my car started leaking.
By midnight, people were going door to door to tell folks they had to evacuate their homes. My Mom and sisters went to the big Baptist Church in the middle of town. It seemed like a safe refuge.
By two or three am, the water was coming over the floodwall and started to cover the homes. My mom lost her car and all her possessions.
There were so many stories from that flood. I recall how one man was rescued halfway up a telephone pole in his diver's frogsuit.
I remember a neighbor that had an invalid grandmother and decided to move into the third floor of their home where they thought they would be safe. When they stepped out of their bed in the dark at 2:30 in the morning, the water was up to their knees.
The postmaster killed himself.
The water was about to get into the hospital as they brought people into the back door in boats.
My Mom and family and others were rescued from the church about midnight and they had to crawl out a window in the top floor of the church and duck under the electrical wires as the boat got them out of the church.
A woman on the other side of the town was having a baby and they had to bring her to the hospital as the boat crossed the steel-span bridges on the way.
My brothers and friends parked on a road above the graveyard as the water kept rising. There was a rumor that a coffin had come out of a freshly dug grave.
There were so many stories. This flood in Kentucky brings them all back.
Three days later, the water had receded and many were able to get back into their homes. The mud was 6 to 8 inches deep on the sidewalk leading to the door. There was a stick of butter behind the screen door. The refrigerator was on its back in the kitchen. Some photos and few items were saved. Everything else was destroyed by the water and mud.
(Before I had evacuated, I had put my record collection on my bed and covered it up with the blanket. When I uncovered it, the album on top of the stack was Fathers and Sons by Muddy Waters. It was an ironic coincidence.)
But then, just as the people in Kentucky today, there was no place to live. Many people were homeless and did not have family to live with. There was no food or water.
Jimmy Carter will always be revered by our family. He sent in FEMA as soon as possible to help all the victims. He managed to get mobile homes brought in from all the surrounding states for people to live in, some as far away as Georgia and Florida. It was a lifesaver for my Mom.
I can understand what these folks in Kentucky are going thru at this time.
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