Easter weekend, 1979: I get a phone call to help John Robinson because his house flooded. That made no sense to me. Flooded? How bad could it be? It was late afternoon, so I took my old Ford to John's house. I met Johnny Kroeze at the top of the street. I had to park there because the rest of the road was under three feet of water.
This was a bad dream. I knew some of these people, and their houses were knee-deep in water. In the Robinson house, water was already two feet deep. They had a second story, so we moved as much of the furniture as we could up the stairs to wait out the water. Surely it wouldn't get any higher.
After we moved as much as we could, Mr. Robinson asked if we would help his neighbors. One neighbor was out of town, and the water was up to his car's engine, and no one had a key. I met Joe and Johnny Iupe, sports rivals from St. Joe. Seeing them hip-deep in flood water instead of the sports field was surreal. Joe strapped a four by eight sheet of plywood over two canoes which we dubbed the "flood barge," and moved as much furniture to high ground as we could.
One man gave us bottles from his bar as payment for saving his grandmother's piano. In the dark, in the water, boys our size probably didn't look sixteen. We worked into the night, not knowing any of these people but doing our best to help.
Each time we landed the barge, women we didn't know gave us hot coffee to help counteract the chilling, brown Pearl River water. I wasn't a coffee drinker before that, it was for old people, but I learned to appreciate it. To this day, I associate hot coffee with kind strangers trying to warm a very cold and very frightened Boyd.
I knew exactly where the river was. In better times, we camped and fished and rode the rope swing four or five hundred yards away through the woods. All of that was underwater now. Nothing was familiar anymore.
Around ten o'clock, the national guard said we had to go home. They were afraid of looting. The water covered the wheels of my old Ford. When I parked, it was dry. I drove by Mayor Dank's house on the way home. All his lights were on, and many cars were in the driveway, but he was at city hall, on television. I don't know if he slept or even came home that night.
Once home, I got a hot shower and dry clothes. Some of us met at Mr. Gatti's for hot pizza and maybe sneak a beer. The staff at Mr. Gatti's was pretty understanding that way, as we were all underage. They had the first big-screen TV I ever saw; it was tuned to the news. Burt Case came on. Mayor Danks made an announcement. The levee and spillway to the Ross Barnett Reservoir were in imminent danger of breaking. They had to open the spillway and release pressure. John Robinson's face fell. We thought the worst of the flood was over. With the spillway open, it got much worse.
We went home confused and afraid. There was a pretty tall hill between my house and the river, but were we in any danger? Nobody knew. Once home, I learned that Mississippi Power and Light came to my brother's dorm at Millsaps, looking for volunteers to sandbag their facility downtown to preserve electricity to the city as long as possible. They worked all night. It kept their communications center and computers working, and Jackson never lost power. My dad was at Trustmark with Brum Day and Bob Herron. I have no idea what they talked about. He was silent when he got home.
Just about dawn the next day, I get another phone call. Stuart Speed's house was in pretty big trouble. Off I go again. Johnny Kroeze brought his dad's johnboat. We needed it. Mr. Speed was organized and focused, and very intense. He had a look in his eye I seldom saw in anyone. Mrs. Speed was crying. We rescued what we could, but their beautiful home was in bad shape. When we'd done all we could, someone asked if we could help Mr. Palmer down the street.
John Palmer said he cared nothing for the furniture, but could we rescue some clothes for his daughters. They were my age, and I knew them. The idea of girls from my school with no clean clothes to wear made all this shockingly real. I have no idea whose room I was in, but I got as big an armload of closet clothes as possible and made my way to the waiting johnboat. After dumping off the load, I made my way back for another. The water was just below my chest now. We made jokes about alligators and snakes in the water, only in the days after did I learn how real that threat was.
I don't know if it was Mr. Palmer's house or one of his neighbors, but somebody had a pool. I had no way of seeing it walking through unfamiliar yards in chocolate-colored water up to my nipples. Suddenly the world went away. Water that was four and a half feet deep was suddenly six feet over my head. It took a few moments for my brain to comprehend what had happened. I swam to the surface and continued my work, giving the hidden pool a wide berth.
We had a makeshift harbor on Eastover drive where the water ended. Again, mothers, I still don't know the names of, had coffee, some even had donuts, but I couldn't eat. The higher the water got, the more frantic and frightened the homeowners became. I continued on.
The National Guard let us work through the night that night. Before dawn, I rested in some stranger's yard, only for a moment, I thought, but exhaustion set in, and I slept in the grass. A few hours later, I woke with the sun, still in someone's front yard but wearing clean pants and a clean shirt. They were my clothes. I have no idea who dressed me or who got the clothes. My mother swore it wasn't her.
I began work again. Some people had given up. Their homes were in eight feet of water by then. At three o'clock that afternoon, the radio said the floodwaters crested. I went home exhausted and unbearably sad. A hot shower and another set of clean clothes later, my Mom asked if I wanted anything. "Coffee," I said. She never questioned it.
Many of my friends lived in hotels, fishing cabins, or whatever they could find and rebuilt their homes in the days that followed. People with flood insurance were the lucky ones. Most didn't. The rest took out second mortgages and lived with them.
Workers stripped the carpets and drywall from their homes, leaving great piles of mud-smelling debris on every flooded street for the city to remove while Jackson rebuilt. My friends were sad but alive. Eventually, life got back to normal again.
Shortly before my birthday that year, I got a letter from John Palmer, thanking me for rescuing his daughter's clothes from the alligators in his living room. I still have it. Southerners often respond to tragedy with comedy. Outsiders say it's an attempt to mask our feelings, but sometimes it's the only thing that makes any sense. I still drink coffee. To me, it means someone's love, despite adversity.
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| Flooding Downton |
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