The creek thundered and crashed along, 8 or 9 feet
deep in places, foamed and spewed into the air as it
slapped against the trees several feet from its banks.
Muddy brown water swirled around my house and
across my yard all the way to the road and over the
road for part of one day, and water covered the pasture
to the side and back of me. Water rushed across the yard
toward the creek.
This was my tenth flood, and the biggest. Once a year,
usually in February. The water would spread over the yard,
two to three feet deep, but stop short of the highest part
near the road where I could park my van and keep it safe.
The flood would last all day, but toward evening the rain
would end and within a surprisingly short time the yard
would be drained, the creek again confined within its banks.
It was as if the plug were pulled, much as one might empty
the bathtub.
One year the creek flooded twice, in the fall when a
hurricane struck the Florida coast, and again in February
as usual. During the two years of drought there was no
flooding.
This September flood surprised me. Frequent and
prolonged rain for the past couple days had swollen the
creek so that it lunged along barely confined. All earth
around it was saturated. And then came the deluge.
I had parked near the road, moved buckets and yard
tools to the highest ground or the porch. During the night
the water reached the road and I went out to move the van,
planning to take it to a nearby house on a hill. I couldn't see
the edges of the culvert so I got back out of the van and
waded back and forth, probing with my stick to find the
drop-off to the ditch.
Walking back through the yard, water poured over the
tops of my calf-high rubber boots that had been adequate
in the previous floods. The boots made heavy with water
may have helped keep me on my feet, for the water was
swift, the current pulling at my legs, tugging my stick away
each time I lifted it.I believe if I had fallen I would have
been swept into the creek.
The rain kept up all night, heavy at times. I kept monitoring
the distance between the water and the porch floors. I didn't
believe it would come in the house, it never had, not even
during the hundred-year flood of 1990 that flooded the
Trion school and the cotton mill.
There was only a slow drizzle by early morning. It was
exciting to sit on the porch as if I were on a ship in the midst
of a rolling sea, watching cars come down the road at their
usual speed, then abruptly slow when they hit the water,
v-shaped plumes of water shooting high on either side.
One woman stopped and made frantic gestures toward me. I
thought she was having car trouble, but she pulled away and
went on. I was told later it was she who called 911. They
sent the Rescue Unit.
A fire truck loaded with men wearing hip boots. There were
300 cots set up in a church for the refugees from the
Frogtown section of Trion which was inundated when the
Chattooga River breached the levee. I thanked them and
they moved on. I could have used a pair of the hip boots.
My middle son called several times that day from the Atlanta
area where water was over the interstate, thousands of
houses flooded, some with the lower storeys filled, bridges
out, pavement ripped up, roads closed. His own home safe
on high ground, he was urging me to get out. I was staying
put. A day off, an exciting view, plenty of food and coffee
in the house.
John Muir once said we must learn the language of nature,
including the language of floods. I've learned the language of
this section of Cane Creek. I've walked its banks when they
were brimming full and listened to the music of the normal
flow, watched it when it was barely a trickle and, during two
summers of drought, walked for miles along its dry bed. I've
traced it on the map, from Tennessee to the Chattooga River
where it added its waters to the flooding of Frogtown.
I read accounts of the 1990 flood which came right after this
house was built, and I interviewed people who witnessed that
flood. The builder told me the water reached the edge of the
front porch. It was about six inches short of the edge this time.
The creek started flooding Sunday night. The rain stopped
during the day on Monday and by Monday evening the
water had drained away and I went to bring my van back
home.
