Miles of Memories

When I arrived in the River Plantation neighborhood last friday to help with the flood clean up, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Two weeks prior, my husband and I were in Pennington Bend, a neighborhood across from the Opryland Resort, helping total strangers pull out dry wall. I had a lump in my throat as we drove into the neighborhood that day, and on this day, that same lump returned. Because despite already knowing what to expect, seeing it a second time really doesn't make it any easier.

In fact, driving into River Plantation felt worse that it did two weeks ago. Worse because two weeks had already passed and there were still piles of everyone's belongings in their front yards. And those piles were high. And those piles were covered in dry wall. And that dry wall had been rained on, essentially turning everything into paste, and paste causes things to stick together. And the piles seemed to stretch for miles. And it was these piles that we would be moving.

We were armed with shovels and wheelbarrows, gloves and dust masks. An army of us in bright orange shirts, working swiftly like ants, tearing away at the several-foot high pile in front of us. Everyone mostly kept to themselves, only talking when needing to, and we knocked it out. We had that pile of debris done, out of the way, forgotten. In less than an hour. Only to have a bulldozer push more debris right back into the very spot we'd just cleared.

I found this disappointing.

But on to the next pile we went. And the next after that. And the next after that. I was focused and diligent and just kept reminding myself that every little drop in the bucket (or wheelbarrow) counts. But despite my determination to keep moving as quickly as I possibly could, I found myself slowing. It was hard work and I was becoming fatigued. And as hard as I tried not to spy, with the slowing of movement came the inevitable evaluating of stuff.

Where I was once only seeing debris in front of me, I began to notice some of the items that were in those piles we were removing. And those items, to be perfectly honest, made me sad. These were things familiar to my life. A Play-Dough factory that my brother Matt and I had as children. Spools of thread that reminded me of my Grandmother. A pale yellow Kitchenaid that I would want for my own kitchen in the house my husband and I had bought just a few months prior to the flood.

That's the thing about stuff. It reminds you of who you are, of where you've been, and all the other memories wrapped in between. We all like to think that because we "can't take it with us when we go" it's somehow irrelevant or unimportant. Or that we shouldn't be emotionally connected to it. But we are.

Having never been through a natural disaster, there are many things I've learned in the past month. I know what a sump pump is. I know that swift moving waters can literally wash away a bridge, a car or a house. I know that there are a lot of people near and far with big hearts who are willing to help in any way that they can. And I know that there is loss. And that's what makes cleaning up this mess a hard job. Not shoveling, not hauling, not fighting through dry wall paste or knowing that it's going to take months to clear this all away. It's knowing that so many people lost so many things, and that many of those things really are irreplaceable.

Mountains to Move

I started out the morning by kind of pumping myself up. I knew it was going to be an emotional day, so I wanted to have my mind and heart mentally prepared. The day did not disappoint ...

I heard on the news about the trash heap that had been resurrected at Edwin Warner Park. I got to see it firsthand as I rolled down Old Hickory Blvd. into Bellevue. It was hard to tell exactly what the piles contained, but I saw several distinct mountains with various household goods, appliances and what seemed to be "compost". I am not exaggerating when I say mountains. The heavy machinery working to minimize the waste looked like micro machines compared to the enormous heaps.

My spirits lifted as I pulled into the church parking lot and was greeted by two of my favorite co-workers, Tori and Jill. Marcia and Marcus pulled in shortly after. It was all jokes and smiles as we filled out our paperwork and retrieved our T-shirts. We filed on the bus, and I began my photo blog.

We grabbed our burrows and shovels and made our way to the clean-up site. We all jumped right in and starting pulling, loading and wheeling the trash out to the street. The smell was ripe and the loads were heavy. After a good hour we all lightened our loads a bit by taking turns shoveling, loading, wheeling, and dumping. This continued throughout the morning. There were a couple "light" times ... Jill fighting with her mask and ultimately using it as a headband. Marcus toting a flag around in his back pocket for a couple loads. And of course, the delicious Chimichanga served to us at lunch. With the overwhelming heaviness of the situation, you had to look for humor in the little things.

After lunch the foreman led us around the corner where we broke off into groups of five. Our job was to get large piles of "household materials" out from between the houses and into the street. China cabinets, entire bathrooms including tile, toilets, tubs (three total), dressers full of clothes, and of course – drywall, drywall and more drywall. At that point I think we were all a little numb and were just working as robots to get the job done while snapping pictures along the way.

It took about 25 people and five hours to clear three piles of flood waste. A tiny dent on one street corner of this catastrophic flood. All in all I felt really good about my contribution. I was working with a great group of people and was really proud of all the work we had done. I think we all felt that way.

One by One...

Greet
Review
Assist
Christ
Encourage

Let’s just say when we pulled into Graceworks Ministries we weren’t sure what to expect. There were several volunteer opportunities available, however, Linda and I were placed in the food pantry for the day.

The pantry is a small room that is housed within the warehouse that is considered Graceworks. Our jobs were to place all of the “donated” food items to their appropriate boxes, restock the shelves with up-to-date food (remove the out dated items) and fill orders for customers.

This organization services Williamson County only but has made numerous emergency relief packages that that have went to flood victims. Also the mail carriers’ food drive that happened May 8^th & 9^th raised over 37,000 pounds of food for the pantry.

It’s great to know that companies like Publix donate to this wonderful cause weekly as well! Linda and I were truly thankful for the opportunity to serve others.

Everything Starts Where it Ends

I stopped to put on a bright orange t-shirt that was given to me as I was walking out of the Bellevue Church of Christ. I don't remember what it said, it didn't matter to me. Even if it had, I would have forgotten it anyway, because in a few minutes everything that I thought was important would disappear.

There was an older man waiting for us in the driver's seat of an old beat up bus, drinking a can of generic-brand ginger-ale. He was staring at us from the top of the three steps in a way that only an old bus driver drinking generic ginger-ale could. I climbed the towering steps, smiled and walked down the aisle. I took a seat mid-way down on the left-hand side. For whatever reason, I've always felt more comfortable on that side.

I don't think anybody knew exactly where we were going. We just knew we were going there together, and I was okay with that. After several generic questions from strangers wearing the same orange shirt that I was wearing, the engine started winding down and I heard the old familiar sound of a bus' air-brakes. We were there.

The unmistakable grating of metal going across metal signaled to us that the door was open and that it was time to go. Like lemmings, we all stood up and waited our turn to walk down the three steps. I stepped down and my left foot landed on the loose gravel at what used to be called "River Plantation."

At first glance, things didn't look too bad. We climbed up a small hill that the bus driver cruelly parked at the bottom of and saw several people in blue shirts. The hierarchy was immediately clear; the leaders in blue, the lackeys in orange. Aside from the color, our shirts looked the same. Or so I thought - I didn't read their shirts either.

A man in blue must have given some directions because about ten people in front of me grabbed a wheelbarrow that had a rake and shovel in each and took off walking down the road. I didn't hear any instructions though, and neither did anyone behind me. We all hoped that we too were supposed to do the same, so at the risk of being singled out, we quickly grabbed our own set of tools and followed along in the mile-long procession.

As soon as I started walking, the devastation was immediate. There were piles upon piles of rubble. Along the main road was a long snake-like trash-heap that easily measured ten feet across and several feet high waiting for the trucks to come and pick it up. This mound went up the road, around a left-hand turn and out of my sight.

I peered into the open windows of countless houses as I followed in line. The only things that I saw were 2"x4" framework, overworked fans and contractors. These people had lost absolutely everything. Reality was rapidly setting in.

After walking several more blocks of seeing nothing but the same ripped apart home time and time again, we finally made it to where we would begin working. The piles of trash were above my head and they were all around me. And the stench ... wow. The stench was indescribable. What made it worse was that I now know firsthand what someone's ruined life smells like.

There were already several people there working, so we all immediately jumped in to action. We didn't need a man in a blue shirt this time. Our job was simple: load up our wheelbarrows one small, humbling load at a time and push it to the main road where it would be picked up by heavy machinery.

Simplicity is never what it seems to be. The weight of reality came crashing down with every scoop of my shovel. I was picking up splintered pieces of another person's life and throwing them into a pile to be destroyed permanently.

I was the last person to see some of these family photographs.

I was the last person to read the signatures held within a yearbook from 1982.

I was the last person to see their trinkets from their vacations.

I was the last person to read their favorite framed scripture.

I was the last person that these people ever expected to be touching their belongings.

But that's reality.

Who knew that on a Friday the forecast would call for rain, and on Saturday communities would be calling for help? Not me, and certainly not them.

We were all like ants - coming and going from the same place while following the same lines. Load after load after load we finally got rid of two massive piles that would have easily filled an entire town home from bottom to chimney. I was exhausted, sore and mentally drained, but there was still so much to do.

After a quick bag-lunch (for those playing at home: it was a homemade chimichanga, a bag of bbq potato chips and a Little Debbie Swiss Roll) we went around the corner to another road. On this back road, everyone's lives were stacked up in their side lawns. We were to move it all to the road where a man on a Bobcat in a blue shirt and absolutely no regard for safety would periodically come by and recklessly push it all to another, more centralized pile.

I was dragging bathtubs to the street to the tune of shattered glass as the guys next to us were heaving curio cabinets onto the asphalt. There were several grime covered toilets, presumably from the flood waters, that shattered as they hit the ground. There were dressers full of a younger girl's clothes and other belongings that was thrown into the road. Expensive vases were being tossed and then ran over by an erratic Bobcat, while what used to be a tiled bathroom wall laid idle on the pavement.
















*Behind and beside me lay the ghosts of hundreds of shattered lives.

After hours upon hours of this routine, the day was over. It was heartbreaking having to leave - there was still so much to do. We could have been there for two weeks straight and still not even be halfway done. It's incomprehensible to see something of that magnitude. Everything sounds awful on the news and the photographs all look terrible ... but you don't know the half of it until you're there. Until you see first hand how much these people have lost. Until you put everything they've ever worked for onto a dirty shovel ...

Humbly, we all walked the same mile-long walk back to their base-camp while our shovels and rakes noisily bounced in the wheelbarrows. My shoulders were slumped and my feet felt like they were made of lead.

Filthy, sweat-covered and exhausted we climbed back onto the waiting bus. I shared the same smile with the same old man as he gave me the same stare and drank the same generic drink. Halfway down the aisle, I took my seat. It was on the left.

Now I Know

I didn’t realize just how bad it was until yesterday. I watched the news coverage, I saw the photos, I read the blog posts, but I didn’t fully comprehend the devastation from the flood until I saw it in person yesterday.

As I was driving to the Bellevue Church of Christ to meet the other volunteers, I
was shocked to see the mountains of debris at the park across the street from the Steeplechase grounds at Percy Warner Park. Cindy Hall had told me about it just
a couple days ago, but I didn’t understand the degree of what it really is.

We (Katie, Marcus, Marcia, Tori and some other volunteers) were taken by bus from the church to what once was the River Plantation community. Now it’s just street after street of empty homes that have been gutted and are drying out with the help of huge fans. And more mountains of debris in every direction you look.

Our job was to move the debris from the alley behind the soaked homes to the street for pick up. It was during the shoveling and raking and wheelbarrow emptying that all this became personal to me. It’s not just saturated drywall and muddy insulation that make up these mountains of ruined stuff – it’s also shoes and toys and cookbooks and clothes with tags still attached that have never, and will never, be worn … It’s couches and chairs and mattresses and sinks … Even the remains of a piano. At one point I looked down and was standing on a huge portion of the tiled wall of a bathtub, next to the soap holder. It’s unbelievable. These people have lost EVERYTHING that they owned.

I have felt fortunate since the beginning that I made it through the flood without losing a thing. But now I feel even more fortunate to truly understand what happened to so many people, and to have been able to help even the fraction that I did.

5 Feet of Water

The news covered this area over and over again, showing the all-too-familiar brown water taking over everything in its path. The volunteer who led our team told us we'd be driving to a subdivision that will look normal at the beginning, but we'd be headed to the lowest parts of that neighborhood that received the most damage.

This was the giant crane trash picker upper that was in the neighborhood getting rid of all the flooded piles of debris. A part of my team's work was to move existing piles of said debris closer to the road so it could be picked up by the crane. Contents of debris piles: toys, shoes, clothes, food, soaked drywall and insulation, carpet, rugs, the entire contents of the first floor of every house in this neighborhood. All of the houses on this road looked like this.

This is where I spent the first part of my day. We removed all the nails and staples from the subfloor - the flooring had been pulled out already. If you look at the wall, you can see that they had 5 feet of flooding in their home. The back door had white blinds that up top looked pristine, but 5 feet up from the bottom was brown, stained from the floodwater.

As we got ready to leave, one homeowner came to us and said, "We can't thank you enough for all of your help. And if anything like this ever happens to you ... (she paused) ... don't call me." Good to know these people have been through so much but still have their sense of humor.