I’m not saying “The Situation” is scary. Although, he was pretty scary on Dancing With The Stars last season. Ouch, was he ever bad! No, the scary situation I’m talking about was one that I faced when I was 15 years old.
It was spring 1976 in our tiny town in McDowell County West Virginia. I’m not sure how long it had rained, but we had got some heavy downpours. The creek near our home grew furiously violent as it soon began to swell into our neighbor’s yard. Families in our little community began searching for higher ground. There was a church that sat upon a hill a short way from our home and my family sought refuge there for the night.
This little church in this photo looked a lot like the one my siblings and I attended, except it wasn’t a Catholic church. We went to Sunday School there and it was a place of comfort. However, that day, I found little solace being in the house of the Lord. Instead, I felt frightened. “What does a flash flood mean,” I thought. “Would our home be swallowed by the raging waters?”
The church was cold. No one had built a fire in the furnace with such short notice as people piled into the small building. People gathered bringing hoards of food with them like it was a social gathering. The gloomy fate, as seen through a teenager’s eyes, didn’t seem to bother the adults.
That night, I tried to sleep on my make-shift bed — the hardwood floor of the church. Hardwood truly means ‘hardwood’. I tossed and turned. The chill I felt earlier was hanging on. I wanted to be in the comfort of my bed snuggled beneath warm blankets.
At first light the next morning, the sun broke through the gray clouds revealing glorious blue skies. The symbol in the sky reminded me of God’s promise to never again destroy the earth by water. We drove back to our home. What would we find? I was anxious. Our home sat on a three to four-foot cedar block base elevating it off the ground; all the homes close by were the same. We lived in what was called “Company Housing”. Back in the heyday of the coal industry, the mines would build homes around the site. I’m not sure why the reason they were all jacked off the ground like this unless it was because the homes were in a flood zone (I don’t think they actually labeled areas in those days, though). This turned out to be a blessing for us that spring day because the inside of our house did not get any flood water. The only mess we had to clean up was our yard, small cellar, and the furnace room. The muddy mess was like the bottom of a creek bed.
The electricity and phone services were out for days. Our drinking water contaminated by the flooding. We couldn’t drink the tap water unless we sterilized it first by boiling it for 15-minutes. My daddy had to get water from the Red Cross for a few days until the power restored. Locals recieved typhoid shots as a precautionary measure. I got one.
I recall how DH (then my boyfriend) lived on top of a mountain being so concerned about me attempted to come see me but found too many obstacles blocked his path forcing him to turn back. Eventually, he came off the mountain on his 10-speed bike to get around the road blocks. Isn’t he a romantic or what? The devastation he saw was hard to imagine that he told me that he encountered. I had not seen a lot of the damages yet. I knew many of the mobile homes near us had been swept away like toothpicks, including my uncle and his wife’s home.
A few days later, I began really feverish, congestion, and coughing. This had to be the result of the moldy conditions, as this is one of my extremely sensitive allergies. I think the typhoid vaccine accelerated my symptoms. My husband asked if I could spend a few days with my best girlfriend and her family on top of the mountain. The Davis’ were always so kind to me, often times treating me like one of their own. As we drove to my friend’s house. The destruction I saw was mind-blowing. Mobile homes stacked together and lodged against the creek bed like cards, roadways and bridges washed out, homes pulled off their foundations, trees downed, and more. (Note of interest: The damage depicted in this photo gallery are similar to what I saw in 1976. Pictures cannot capture the true essence of this event.)
The governor declared a ‘State of Emergency’ in many of the southern counties. Schools closed for weeks or longer after the disaster. The high school had to stay shut down for a month because it took on flood water of several feet. Every time after that, when it rained I shuttered with fear. I didn’t know if we’d be forced from our home again or worse. Thankfully, the years that followed I did not have to witness another occurrence such as this. Old memories don’t die and even today I have flashbacks of my earlier terror when it rains hard. All I can do is silently pray for my fears to lessen and for us to be spared any harm. Talking to the Man upstairs sure does help and the scary situation without fail diminishes.
What scary situation have you been in? Does it continue to haunt you?
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@Donnie…a hurricane would be totally frightening to me. @Linda…tornadoes are scary,too. I have had an experience with these though once and that was enough. No matter where we live, there are natural disasters certain to befall us at one point or another. It makes one grateful when they come through it relatively untouched while others are rebuilding their lives.
Wow that would be a very traumatic experience! Around here we have Tornadoes and one came over the mall where I was working and caused a ton of damage.
We were all sent to the lowest part of the mall into the long inner hallways to sit it out.
When it passed and I went out to go home, my car was parked next to a huge light and it had crashed on the car next to me…but all of my windows were blown out of my car and glass was everywhere.
It was so traumatic for me that I had a nightmare that night and sat up in bed screaming with fear after a dream where I was re-living it all again.
You will find me in my basement in a closet whenever there is a tornado warning…I don’t mess around with those things!
But I do have to pray and give God my fears. He protected me that night and I am so very thankful.
Linda @ Truthful Tidbits
We lost about everything about 1975-76 in Cape May, New Jersey. A nor’easter blew water over the seawall and it got trapped in an area called Frog Hollow. Guess who lived there….lol… The town pumps wouldn’t work so the water sat there for almost a week. The Red Cross put us up in a hotel and then the Coast Guard moved us into old base housing that had been closed. There were many Coast Guard families affected. I no longer keep things I treasure under the bed or on the floor of a closet. God protected my family and that is all that mattered to me. Glad everything worked out for you.