The Flood of 2008... Here We Go Again...

Any Johnny Cash fans out there?


How high's the water, mama?

Two feet high and risin'

How high's the water, papa?

Two feet high and risin'

We can make it to the road in a homemade boat

That's the only thing we got left that'll float

It's already over all the wheat and the oats,

Two feet high and risin'


Here we go again. If you’ve watched the news at all in the last week, you know that we’re getting ready for record flooding. Clarksville (my hometown, population 485) has become quite the media darling. They’ve been on all the local news channels, of course, but also on the NBC Nightly News, Today Show, etc. NBC, CBS and FOX all have their newstrucks there and they’re broadcasting live every morning and every evening with updates. The Mississippi River is predicted to crest a little over 38 feet on Friday or Saturday. To give you an idea of what that means – that’s higher than it was in ’93. It crested at 37.7 in July of 1993.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25180311
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25200476/
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6789976&version=10&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
http://www.ksdk.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=148366&catid=131
http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?aid=78598
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=148328&s=v


As most of you know, my family owns a large farming corporation (Busch Heirs) just south of Clarksville in Annada, MO. We farm a couple of thousand acres of bottom land along the Mississippi. Busch Heirs’ base of operations is my grandparents’ farm. If you go to Google Maps and tell it to look at Annada, MO this is what you’ll see (below).

The cluster of buildings immediately north of Annada is that farm. And each of those buildings is a huge barn full of tractors, combines, implements, tires, tools, etc. The largest of the barns is the shop barn. Imagine all the tools and equipment you’d see in an auto mechanic’s shop – now increase that exponentially both in qty and size! (By the way, if you do go to Google Maps and look up Annada, move the map to the east and you’ll see where the river is – that’ll give you a good idea of how immense the ’93 flood was and how immense this one will be – the water was a mile and a half west of our farm in ’93 at its worst!)

In 1993 the levees couldn’t take the pressure and broke – it was disastrous for us. The levees are higher and stronger now than they were then, but even the highest one was built to only holdup to 36 feet. The shortest one on our property was topped on Sunday. My brother-in-law, Jonas, headed up there after work on Friday; as did J and I. I know Jonas had better things to do with his weekend, but he was there to do whatever needed to be done. Friday night we got my Grandma’s house cleared out – all of her furniture was loaded into the back of my cousin’s semi trailer. But that was nothing. The bulk of the work was still left to do. We had four barns full of tractors, combines, machinery and implements to move up into the hills. We had the shop barn to clear out. Dad built two platforms six feet up in the air – and everything in that barn had to be up on those platforms. Every single nut, bolt, hose, tool, welding helmet, bottle of motor oil, acetylene torch, etc – it’s just so incredibly much STUFF. It’s impossible for me to communicate how daunting a job it is and how much work it involves. It seems insurmountable – but we’d done it once before… we’d do it again.

Saturday morning I was touched and pleased to find that we had more help than we’d anticipated! We had five extra bodies with willing hands to work. My father-in-law, Jay; J’s business partner and friend, Mike; Mike’s wife and my best friend, Mary Beth; and our friends Sean and Katie were there to help. We didn’t ask for the help – they just volunteered and showed up. Dad doesn’t ask for help. He’s stubborn, it’s annoying, but it’s who he is – you’ve gotta force it on him. And we did. Altogether we had 15 people working on Saturday. Dad divided us up into work crews and gave everybody their instructions. By 5 o’clock that afternoon we’d completed it all – we’d accomplished more than we’d been able to do in ’93. (Of course those circumstances were quite different – more on that below.)

Here is the shop after we'd moved everything out that we could, and moved the rest of it up onto platforms (the shop is just too big to get it all into one picture - but this gives you the idea...)

Here is the largest barn, which functions as a huge parking garage for tractors, combines and implements after it was emptied. I don't know if you can tell from teh scale, but it would generally hold three of four tractors, a couple of combines and lots of "farming stuff".

There are two of these smaller barns/shed pictured below that hold various trucks, small tractors, etc. We cleaned most of the stuff out of them and them put fencing around them so that anything we didn't clear out won't float away (a lesson learned from '93).

The very largest barn is the one I call the drive-though. If you look at the truck parked to the left (and keep in mind that's a huge grain truck), you'll get an idea of the scale. It contained a combine, a sprayer, a bunch of gigantic implements with sharp blades that I don't know the name of, tractors and tillers, and all kinds of other "farm stuff". Cleared it out too.

We thanked everyone before they left. And I sent them an email thanking them again yesterday. But I don’t think any of them will really understand what a difference they made and how much we appreciate it. It’s just not possible to explain how much got done, how long it would have taken without them (IF we could have even done it all without them) and how much we appreciate it. It’s humbling. I am truly blessed to have friends and in-laws that are as giving and caring as they are. Crap. Now I’m tearing up. Moving on.

As I'm sure you can imagine we were exhausted when we finally got home at 11 o'clock Sunday night. My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, and I'm covered with scrapes and bites and bruises. J slept for 12 hours from 6:00 Monday night until 6:00 Tuesday morning!

Anyway, J and I went up again last night to take some “before” pictures. The water is coming over the levee that lies between Busch Heirs and the Mississippi. We got to the levee shortly after it started coming over. While we were there, Sherriff Wells (Pike County Sherriff) came out to check the levee himself – he’d gotten a call from a helicopter saying a levee had broken or been topped in that area. The water was rushing over the road, creating a miniature waterfall.

We watched HUGE catfish and carp fighting the rushing water and then finally flopping over the road. We even tried to catch a few! I got my hand on a very big one – but he wasn’t interested in letting me touch him so he flipped right away from me.

The two pictures above were taken before we continued through the water and walked up to the top of the levee. This is what we saw - it took our breath away. The water is right there at the top of the levee. The river is supposed to be just under half a mile beyond this levee.

The scene in Clarksville is like something straight out of a movie. The National Guard is all over the place, lots of volunteers, huge flood lamps – it really seems like a movie set, it’s so surreal.

I’ll keep you updated with “during” and “after” pictures. Frankly, this is the easy part. It’s the cleanup and repair after the water finally goes down that’s the real nightmare.

Why is this so different from 1993?

I’m only speaking for my family and our experience. This time the crest is going to be higher than it was in 1993 in Clarksville.

In ’93 they didn’t predict the record-breaking flood at first. They just kept saying it’ll rise another 4 inches, then the next day they’d predict another 5 inches, then another 2, etc, etc. So we spent weeks sandbagging the levees and trying to hold the floodwaters back. On the evening of July 4 our levee broke, so everybody dropped their sandbags and scattered. We all headed to our homes and farms to prepare for the water. We were exhausted and demoralized and angry, and a little scared. We had less than 24 hours to prepare for the coming water.

We worked through the night. We had to move the combines, tractors, implements, etc up to higher ground. We built the same platforms in the shop and put everything on those platforms. We had to clear out Grandma’s house; all of her furniture, the entire basement, the garage, the entire household. We built a platform in her living room too. Ripped up the carpet and put her entire house on that platform. Tried to get Grandma to leave, but she wasn’t having it. (After the water really came up, she relented and she and the dog left by boat.)

The water started rising before we were done, of course. By the time we stopped working (can’t say by the time we were done because we didn’t have enough time to get everything done) we were walking through water up to my knees between the house and the shop. When the water came up it stopped just short of going into the house, but it was 5 ½ feet deep in all the barns. The storms we had while the water was up tore things to shreds. Mom and Dad took turns with my aunt and uncle sleeping at Grandma’s house to keep the looters away – with no phone, no electricity and no running water in the July and August heat surrounded by water. And then, of course, once the water went down, the real work started.

But this time, we know exactly what we’re in for. We know how high the water will get, nobody’s wasting time sandbagging the levees that can’t possibly hold. We have so much help – so many people have already done so much and many others have offered. We are completely prepared for the water well ahead of time. We know certain things will happen that we couldn’t have possibly anticipated last time. There’s nothing left there of any value to protect at this point, so nobody will have to spend nights down there. It’s already a dramatically different experience. Everybody isn’t stressed out with every last nerve frayed. Thank God.