Flash Flood, Flashback
Here in South Mississippi, the talk for the last few days has been the river. The “river,” for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, is the Pearl River. The river gets its start in central Mississippi and flows through the capital city of Jackson and meanders southward where it becomes the border between Mississippi and Louisiana for a while before making its way into the wetlands of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The part of the Pearl River that I’m speaking of runs through the town of Columbia, Mississippi just north of the Louisiana State Line where the River becomes the East-West boundary of the two states.
Periodically the Pearl River gets out of its banks and things around Columbia get a little hectic. Long ago, towns were established along waterways and trade routes and the downtown area of Columbia is as close as a quarter of a mile from it. On occasion, forecasters sound the alarm that flood stages may reach historical levels followed by all of the warnings associated with public safety and so forth. Then news outlets and old-timers begin making comparisons to the floods of 1979 and 1983.
I remember the flood of 1983 very well. I certainly hope that any flooding of that magnitude never happens again. Naturally occurring weather patterns had brought a lot of rain that winter and the drain off had all of the streams and creek above us filled and everything emptying into the Pearl. Then on the 21st day of April, the rains commenced.
I was a student at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, which lies 50 miles or so East of where I now live. I had back-to-back classes scheduled from 2:00 – 5:45 PM. A light rain peppered me as I ducked into College Hall and 50 minutes later had crescendoed into a steady downpour that continued throughout most of the night. I made a run from College Hall to the Health building, halfway across campus. I remember catching up to and running past a classmate in an electric wheelchair, and I felt horrible for her. I didn’t know her personally, but we had shared a couple of classes and I had seen her in the rain before. I just kept running. I told myself that there was nothing that I could do to help; after all, she had a poncho that covered her and the electronics of the chair. It was an odd time for me to have one of those inner tug-of-wars, but I did. I thought of how brave she was to be going to college in the first place. I thought of her parents and how hard it must have been to allow her to leave the safety of home and the available assistance and love in which they alone could provide. I had no idea of the condition that put her in the chair or what caused the muscles of her body to be drawn and caused her speech to be distorted. But still, I ran. Weighted by the futility of any attempt to help, but I was already soaked, so I stopped, turned and waited for her to catch up. I asked her if she minded if I walked with her and she smiled, but I have no recollection of her reply. Fortunately, her classes were done for the day and she only had a short distance to her dorm. I told her I would see her next week and waved as she rolled up the ramp and into the building. Then, I hauled ass so that hopefully I could get to my next class in time to maybe get some paper towels or something to at least dry my face a little. The rain continued.
After class, I waded to my 1978 Mercury Cougar. Water sloshed inside and onto the floorboard when I opened the door, but I was able to back out into a slightly more level area and slowly, slowly advance to higher ground. I exited the campus and turned to the East to take my normal route to my apartment, but was cut off by the flash flood. I mentioned that my vehicle was 1978 Mercury to bring attention to the fact that the car was a gas guzzler and I was running low. Traffic was horrible, made worse by road closings and I weaved my way around back streets and considered all of the options to get around floodwaters to make it home. In short order, I encountered a car flooded out and holding up traffic. I had little aptitude for the workings of the internal combustion engine then, and for that matter, less now, but I did grow up on a farm and had learned a helpful trick or two. I also had a new can of WD-40, and though I had never tried it, I had heard that spraying WD-40 into the distributor cap of a flooded car would allow it to crank right up. I knew that we wouldn’t be going anywhere if we didn’t at least get this car off of the street so, with WD-40 in hand, I got out to give it a try. Nobody was more surprised than I was that the WD-40 worked.
I continued toward the interstate, stopping and using the WD-40 once more, only the second time, it was with more confidence. There were cars flooded everywhere I looked, but as I mentioned, my car was running low of gas and didn’t have a dime on me. Worried that I wouldn’t make it home I made the decision that I would have to stop being the Good Samaritan and just try to get myself home. Anyway, I continued going West on Hardy Street in Hattiesburg and fortunately, there was a slight incline going in that direction so the traffic began to move at a little better pace. A trip that would normally take only minutes, that day took over 2 hours.
I walked into the apartment and headed straight to the refrigerator, opened a beer, and began telling my roommates about the ordeal and the many cars flooded out on the sides of the streets. My roommates had tales of their own, but they had left campus over an hour before I did. Then I noticed that my twin brother Johnny had not made it home yet. I remembered that he had had a job interview at Forrest General Hospital that afternoon, but no one had heard from him. Remember that this was in 1983, long before cell phones and communication was limited. The thing about Johnny and I being identical twins is that we never worried about each other. Although it wasn’t a conscious effort, we just knew that we would have known if there was something to worry about. Later, I called it a day and while lying in bed, the rain continued and I said a prayer for my Johnny a the girl in the wheelchair.
The next morning, he explained that the job he was applying for was as a housekeeper, responsible for mopping, stripping, and waxing floors. While at the interview, the floodwaters had begun breaking through ground-level windows and flooding the basement of the hospital. He explained that they had hired him on the spot and that he had spent the night with a Squeegee, mop, and shop vac moving water as best as they could.
At the time, being 19-year-old boys, we had no idea the extent of the rain and flooding, but as I recall, depending on who was telling it and where they were, South Mississippi had received between 8 and 16 inches of rain in a very short time. A phone call from our parents verified that there would be no need to try to come home for the weekend due to the number of bridges out between Hattiesburg, Mississippi in Forrest County, and home which was in Walthall County, Mississippi.
Life moved on though, and for the next year, detours were the reality of our existence as disaster declarations were made and federal money became available to rebuild the bridges. As it usually is with humanity and hardship, the people of South Mississippi made adjustments and made plans and kept on moving until one day, we looked back and realized that we had made it. Today, the thread of memory has worn thin in many places and has broken and decayed in others, but certain things stick quite vividly with me today. I can go at this moment and stand where I stood when I heard that Elvis Presley had died. I can tell you exactly what my mood was as I backed my car and began to move forward from the parking lot of a convenience store and heard the news that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded. I can stand in the exact location where I got my first kiss and as you have read, I can tell you in some detail, the events of April 21, 1983.
Today in 2020, we sit and wait and listen to the reports of the river. At this point, the river at Columbia has risen substantially in the last 2 days but the good news is that we haven’t had the long steady rains that created localized flooding like it did in 1983. For those who have experienced flooding in the past, all positive news is good and they know that mighty Pearl River sometimes has a mind of its own and for this reason, we sit and wait. As for me, I wonder whatever happened to the girl in the wheelchair.