On a Saturday in Tennessee…

Tragedy comes in many forms. As a society, we have certainly felt our fair share in these great United States in the last few years and more keenly since the pandemic has wreaked its special brand of havoc on our beloved nation and yet we have endured. Yesterday, several towns west of Nashville, Tennessee were impacted by flash flooding. One town in particular stands out to me…Waverly, Tennessee, a small, rural town nestled among the pastures and hills of Middle Tennessee as you make your way to the western loop of the mighty Tennessee River. In fact, it’s often referred to as the land of “three rivers” because of its proximity not only to the Tennessee River but also to the Duck and the Buffalo Rivers.

Flood waters came roaring in early yesterday morning filling Main Street and surrounding areas with dangerous rapids in a matter of seconds. Water rose inside homes where families were waking up to greet their Saturday mornings and in the streets where the citizens were going about routine Saturday business: getting groceries, heading to work, etc. In a matter of seconds, they were all trapped. Some cried for help from their rooftops, some from their vehicles, some from inside a flooded elementary school, and some from inside the stores they often frequented. Families posted frantic pleas on social media as they couldn’t reach their loved ones trapped by the rising rapids. The images emerging on social media were of a world gone mad, of terror, and awe at the power of Mother Nature. Most of all, they were images of a soul-breaking, heart-splitting kind. The kind of pain that punches you in the gut, knocking the air out of your lungs. The kind that cannot be expressed in words because they aren’t sharp enough to catch the depth of that level of grief and helplessness.

Reports began to surface of babies being ripped from a loving father’s arms as he tried desperately to hold onto them and his other two children in a tiny apartment as waters flooded his home without warning. The two 7-month old twins were lost to the undertow, their lifeless bodies discovered near one another after the angry waters receded. Another man was lost to the rising tide when he abandoned the safety of the top of his truck with his wife to try and save an older lady who rushed by calling for help. As of this afternoon, the death toll is at seventeen with many more missing, young and old alike, as rescue crews and able-bodied community members work to find them while rendering aid and comfort to those so unexpectedly impacted by this catastrophic tragedy on a Saturday morning in rural Tennessee.

So why am I singling out this town today? Waverly, Tennessee is my hometown. While my childhood might not have been idyllic (whose is?) and while I have been gone from this tiny, rural community for the better part of thirty years, I still have family and friends there. It’s true what they say, you know…that you can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl. My life will always be tied to this place in Tennessee. It’s where I attended the same elementary school that stood under four feet of water yesterday. I have fond memories of my grandmother walking me to kindergarten to that same school. It’s where I stop to get gas at the little station across the tracks from where I grew up and where my mother still lives, perched on a hill. That gas station was almost wiped away in the flood along with a 15-year-old girl who is now missing.

Tears stung my eyes as I watched the local sheriff, a man that was one year behind me in school, give an account of what has transpired, how many bodies they’ve recovered in the aftermath, how many more are missing, and how so many surrounding counties have come to our little town’s aid, including members of the Nashville Fire and Rescue division. I watch, barely breathing for the ache that blooms in my chest, as he gets choked up, tears filling his own eyes, while he relays how the community is pulling together to take care of one another, yet again, because that’s what a community does, it cares for its people. That man that I mentioned earlier? The one who died trying to save someone in need? I knew him, too. His name was Scott Kilburn and he helped my mother with her lawn and handyman jobs, as did his lovely wife. It’s a loss for his family but a loss for the Waverly community as well.

So, dear readers, hold your family and friends a bit tighter, a bit longer, and love them fiercely…above all else let them know it because you never know when your opportunity to do so will expire. In the meantime, if you can send up healing thoughts and prayers to my little hometown of Waverly, Tennessee, I will be forever grateful…