Gone in a Flash Flood

A Louisiana Story

You don't think about the smell.

When the waters first start to recede you begin to brace yourself. You expect the media to descend upon your town like mosquitos during a summer sunset, but nothing happens. Your preparation is met with silence.

Silence filled only by the sound croaking frogs, hissing cicadas, and the constant hum of running generators.

People are both emotionally and physically tired, they are hurting, and everything is wet.

And yet-

You don't hear any actual complaints, except about the smell. 

A rancid smell that seeps into your very being and soils objects that can only be replaced with memories.

It's a smell that you can feel in the air.

It's palpable.

It's everywhere.

You try to block it out with bleach, borax and Pine-sol but somehow, that smell-

-that rotting fish, decaying wood, wet carpet, backed up sewage smell-

It clings to your clothes, your shoes -the ones you could save- it's in your hair, and underneath your fingernails. It upturns the strongest of stomachs and the bravest souls as people scour through bloated belongings for something/anything to salvage.

And yet-

There are smiles.

Smiles miraculously find a way onto the faces of people that don't even have a pair of socks to their name. Cars, homes, even lives floated down rivers, ditches, and bayous yet still people manage to smile.

The smallest things can beat back a grimace caused by hard work and loss. 

These people are strong and resilient.

But the rain still falls,

This natural disaster didn't discriminate who it affected, but neither did the people that offered help. 

They go out in boats, trucks, and ATVs. They braved the rain even as the water climbed higher up the side of their own homes.

Volunteers still swarm by the thousands.

As the waters rose, the lines between survivors and victims began to blur. Calloused hands willingly work together to pile sandbags, set up cots, rip out floorings, replace sheetrock, sort donations, cook food, or simply pass out bottles of fresh water.

This was/is a community wide event.

Everyone wants to help. They need to help, like there's this uncontrollable desire to be a part of the process. Or maybe it's because if they took even a single moment to rest, the devastation would be at the forefront of their thoughts.

So they'll do everything they can to keep busy.

They'll wash the dripping wet clothes from victims with flooded homes. They'll spend all day cooking so that workers can have a hot meal. They'll dig ditches to help move water from one side of town to the other. They'll build aqua-damns and trash piles so that the roads can be drivable once more. They'll watch a group of strangers' children because the parents have paneling to rip out. They may have blisters covering their hands, and ant bites littered across their feet but they won't think twice about lending assistance. 

-even in the southern Louisiana heat

Sweat pours down every crevice of the human body, every crevice, and still the rain falls.

It's hard.

It's hard to imagine that in three days enough water fell from the sky to shatter the flood records by four feet.

When you live in the south you become use to the heat, and the humidity, and the rain, and when the weatherman says that there will be a flash flood over the weekend, this type of travesty will never enter your mind.

Imagine that when you lay your head down on your pillow at night, you'd wake up to a foot of water in your house. Imagine having to evacuate your home at three in the morning, or spend twelve hours on your roof as you wait for someone/anyone to come rescue you. 

But once you're out of immediate danger where do you go?

None of the shelters were prepared for this event.

It's not a hurricane.

No one saw it coming.

People and animals gather in studio hangers, and community centers.

Schools struggle to repair themselves in time for class.

Businesses fight to maintain normalcy with twenty-five precent of their staff on site.

Everyone is tired.

Everyone is hurting.

Everyone is wet.

But-

These people are strong and resilient.

And event though the rain still falls, they will continue to fight. 

They'll shove their aching feet into their rubber boots and trudge through the grime and the muck because they can't allow themselves to rest now.

There is still a lot of work to be done.

#LouisianaStrong