Published: May 21, 2009 10:30 pm      

Floods are no fun, except maybe for kids

With all the rain we’ve been having lately, you can’t help but remember back to the days of the big flood of 1936. Probably, compared to some of the big floods that have been in the news in recent years, it was a pipsqueak of an act of God, but it looms very large in my life. I had just started school, and I was learning that there was a world out there that didn’t stop at our front gate. This flood really brought it home. Sorry to say this: I loved it.

Compared to other natural disasters, river floods have the advantage of being predictable. Unlike tornadoes and fires, you can usually prepare for them, and I remember Wheeling, W.Va., my home town, doing exactly that, in those exciting March days, when the countdown began.

The whole place sprang into action, especially the Island, which at that time was home to several thousand people. Floods were old stuff to them; they all had their own plans of action, their own places to take shelter, their own rowboats. Nobody left until the last minute, and nobody worried that it was the last minute. These folks were cool, in the old sense of the word, unflappable veterans in action, who never seemed at all discouraged that they had had to do this over and over again through past decades.

Our church was not on the Island, but it was in the downtown flood zone, so that’s where my family first turned its attention. The sanctuary was on the second floor, but the kitchen and the motor of the pipe organ were way down in the basement, so everybody knew the drill. Put the dishes on the top shelves; painstakingly disconnect the motor and move it upstairs. It was heavy — I remember the men grunting at the weight of it. It was so exciting!

The first evidence of flooding was often backup in the floor drains — in good years, putting in some kind of plug would prevent the water from ever getting in. However, in this flood, the water outside rose pretty quickly past the door, and started pouring down the steps. Folks who had been standing around the drain to see what would happen ( you take your kicks where you can find them) left hastily for the next event on their schedule, which was to help friends in the flood zone move everything off their first floors.

Some 20 people stayed that night at the parsonage, which was above the flood zone, although it was within a few blocks of downtown. What a great day! I didn’t get to bed until midnight. Among the 20 were our church organist and his family, who were relieved to have a place to go after a scary experience. They were Islanders, and, like all the others, had left a rowboat tied to a front tree and retreated upstairs, until it became obvious that the water would follow them there.

Then Mr. Farley, his wife and 6-year-old son (my best friend, Walter) and his mother-in-law set out on the angry river to reach the mainland. Unfortunately they got dumped into the raging Ohio. Somehow everyone was rescued immediately, except for the mother-in-law who, to everyone’s despair, was last seen disappearing down the river. Amazingly, she was rescued later, and the family restored with no bad consequences and many prayers of thanks. (No mother-in-law jokes here; I’m a mother-in-law myself.) I remember Walter being more exhilarated than sobered by the whole thing. As for me, I envied him the fun of it all.

Cleanup, of course, was a big part of the Flood Experience in Wheeling, and the church had a memorable one that year, when people started to notice mud on their plates at a church dinner. As it turned out, they had forgotten to clean off the undersides of the shelves in the church kitchen.

But my all-time favorite flood story, which is said to have actually happened although it sounds too good to be true, is about the man who had an old piano he had been trying to get rid of for months. No one wanted it — it was just a piece of junk — and when the Flood came along, he saw it as a wonderful opportunity for free trash removal. So he hauled it out onto the front porch and congratulated himself on his cleverness. After the water went down, he went back home, and, lo and behold, there was the piano, still on the front porch. And out on the back porch — was another piano!

These things are no fun for grownups. You have to be a kid (who ends up safe) to get the full enjoyment out of floods.