Flood Upon Flood Upon Flood
- Melissa
- Feb 21
- 7 min read
Written February 16, 2025, 9:30am
Friday and Saturday, February 7 & 8 we attended the Mildred Haun conference at Walters State Community College in Morristown, TN, a fantastic annual conference about Appalachian literature, arts, and culture. The theme this year was “But the Creek Did Rise,” since eastern TN suffered from Hurricane Helene flooding. Scott Honeycutt, Tyler Barrett, Amy Richardson, me, Jim Minick, and Kelli Hansel presented a panel and discussed our pieces in the Troublesome Rising flood anthology, about our terrible eastern KY flood in July 2022. We healed a little more and I hope helped those who went through other flooding events.
Monday, February 10, we hosted a group of UK design students on campus. They had read pieces from the anthology. We gave a tour discussing the flood and recovery, showed them the curling, drying, brown photos and papers in the archive that are still being cleaned. Some contributors, Kelli Hansel, Amanda Jo Slone, and Tyler Barrett, shared their work and their experiences of the flood. The UK students gave us a tremendous gift. They had each chosen a quote from one of the anthology’s pieces and embroidered the quote into a square of fabric, which we will have quilted and hung in the building where our new offices will be. We healed a little more and I hope helped the students understand a little what it was like to go through the ’22 flood. Then Sarah Kate Morgan gave them dulcimer lessons.
Tuesday, February 11, a podcast I had recorded with Christian Appalachian Project about our flood and recovery aired. The goal of the episode was to talk about the flood, and to discuss what sustained hope throughout the experience. We healed a little more and helped people understand. (Link: https://www.christianapp.org/node/10626)
Wednesday, February 12, we presented at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center’s Dinner on the Grounds series, where everyone had supper and anthology contributors shared their work. We were live streamed on YouTube: me, Marianne Worthington, George Ella Lyon, Bernard Clay, Leatha Kendrick, Tina Parker, Tyler Barrett, Melva Sue Priddy, Amy Richardson, and Savannah Sipple. We healed a little more, and helped people understand. Some of Monday's UK students showed up to meet more of the authors. (Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/k1hQ63KuzTs)
Saturday, February 15 we were flooded out again.
Not as bad here in Hindman as it was in ’22. Worse in some areas than it was in ’22.
Tyler and I also had a gas leak in our house. The gas company came and shut it off, so we are currently without a furnace, and with another polar vortex swing on its way (which is what I believe pushed all that rain at us yesterday), we may have to shelter elsewhere. Did we want to stay on the hill with fear of falling trees and sliding ground? Did we want to cross to another part of campus and be closer to the terrifying water? Now, with certain damage and gas problems in many places, I don’t know how long it’ll be for our repairs.
Friends and colleagues and neighbors suffering: water in homes and businesses, landslides, fallen trees, no water, no electric, no way off their property. Rising, stinking brown water. Everyone looking at the sky begging for it to stop. Watching the internet and sharing videos, texting friends for updates on their evacuation, going back to the radar again and again. Gather your jump bags. Fill the water bottles. Charge the devices. Stand at the window for hours, marking the water’s progression against a mailbox or tree.
I haven’t been online this morning to assess how bad the surrounding communities have it. I saw terrible footage from Pike, Perry, Harlan, Letcher, Knott, and Leslie counties last night before falling into fitful sleep.
The litany of luck: We’re lucky we didn’t lose power. They say they’re lucky because they only lost a car. Hindman says it’s lucky because the water wasn’t as bad as other places. –No matter how bad it was, we know it was worse elsewhere. We're dutifly aware of our experiences in context of the bigger picture.
And this is our existence. Regular life stress of work and parenting and taxes and car repairs. The utter terror and insanity of the illegal and heartless actions of our elected dictator and his billionaire cronies in Washington threatening everything from our rights and education and safety, to our retirements and healthcare and economy. And then, the horrors of the climate crisis. These polar vortices are human-influenced. The increase in frequency and severity of wildfires and droughts and hurricanes and floods are human-influenced.
And I don’t know what we should do. Yes, we all know to build community and cling to hope and make art and fight and take time to not lose ourselves to rage and despair. But, what do we do when that doesn’t feel like it’s anything more than a bandaid on a bullet hole? I can do yoga and paint and help a friend and share vital information and we can all mostly get through the day. But that doesn’t stop tyranny. It doesn’t stop the fear of violent policies or violent water directly hurting myself and my loved ones.
What do we do when we love a place and are threatened and traumatized again and again by forces out of our personal control whether they be political or environmental?
The challenge is, these things are in COMMUNAL control. The pack of human animals is in control of our government and our environmental crisis. And when half the folks in the pack are in denial or apathy about their impact on the climate crisis and when a third of the voting animal pack championed the candidate that flamed their fear and hatred so hot that they voted for him despite his explicit promise to slit the throat of all the values they pretend to hold dear…. What exactly do we do?
Yes, every drop we put in a bucket can eventually fill an inland sea. I know.
But. Shit.
Do we just spend all our days trying to fill a bucket, while other forces and foes keep drilling holes in it to slow us down, to grind us down into hopeless paralysis?
I’m not mad at Troublesome. It’s just an agent of physical laws. I’m not mad at the trump voters. They were played like fiddles and twisted up until they cast their lot (and ours) with a felonious monster.
But this is the problem of being human. We all sink or swim together. We can’t splinter off and only make the climate change deniers suffer the climate crisis. We can’t just have the dictator’s cult suffer the dictator.
This morning, I looked outside and saw the mud and where Troublesome currently is trailing her turbid finger across the land as she shrinks back into her banks. And I know once I grieve, and maybe make more coffee, the hope and determination will rise back up. If anything, I have a good work ethic and I try hard to love and help my people.
But right now, I am just numb. Not even anger at anything that rightfully deserves my anger.
And I don’t know how to keep going forward when there is so much work to do, so much to fear, so much to rage about, so many hands to hold, so many worthy projects to help, so many friends who are in the same, terrifying boat. So many people shooting holes in the boat's hull, making us sink.
And if anything, the last decade has taught me is that there is no bottom. We fall and fall and fall and I keep hoping for a bounce (I thought we might have bounced away from the fascist but no, we’re still falling). There doesn’t seem a bottom. Each day is an onslaught of more shock: This can’t be real. Why are people cheering this on? How could anyone with a heart applaud this? Why won’t the rain stop, or start? Oh my god. Oh my god. What do we do whatdowedo whatdowedowhatdowedo whatdowe do?
Every. Single. Day.
How bad does it have to get before it starts to get better? Where is the bounce?
The wind just knocked down a tree over by Stucky and now we’re without electric.
I have nothing to offer this morning except, damn, this is just a lot of things to deal with every day. And I’m sending you all the big love. I don’t know how we’ll make it through this modern American existence or what life will be like as we go along. But we’re not alone. We have each other.
And if nothing else is a comfort this morning, that is. We have each other.
Update: February 21
After the power went out, my anxiety couldn’t take it and we fled to Johnson City, TN, to spend a couple days trying to decompress by visiting friends, thrifting, and enjoying good food and coffee. Our gas line is being repaired (3 leaks have been found) so there is still no heat in the house during this terrible polar vortex, so we’re hunkered down in different housing on campus. The updates online from the region are that very familiar swing back and forth: heartbreaking, hearthealing, heartbreaking, hearthealing, heartbreaking, hearthealing...
…and we go on.
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