THE GREAT FLOOD OF 2008

Although it might seem that way, I have not abandoned my blog, but I have been very busy. School is out so I'll have a little more time to write between my working and running. And now I would like to talk about the six days in June that changed my city and is the reason for the race that I ran today.

On June 11, 2008, I went to cross country practice in the morning. The road I usually took to get to school was closed because of some flooding issues so I had to take a little detour. By the time we had come back, the water had already come over one of the roads on our detour. Later that day, for my parent's 20th wedding anniversary, our family drove downtown to look at the floodwater. They were higher than I had seen before but it was only causing some minor damage and didn't seem like that big of deal. And then the rain came.

A day later, on June 12, I basically sat on the couch and watched the local news channel as they covered the flooding. The continuous coverage showed places that I had seen just the day before, covered with water. We had laughed as places seemingly far from the water were sandbagging as we had watched, but the level of the water meant that the sandbags were useless. It was unbelievable seeing city landmarks being covered with water. And the rain just went on.

On June 13, 2008, the river crested at 31.2 ft., more than 11 ft. over the previous record. Events like this have been on the news but you don't really grasp it until you are there. Until it's places that you know that are being affected. It's weird knowing that a picture of my city was on the cover of the New York Times, my teammate's dad was on CNN, and the National Guard was just down the street. When my family was looking at the flood, in an area where you usually can't see the river, I actually stood next to their jeeps. I saw the police rescue someone from the river. I watched a houseboat float downstream. This was my hometown, where I was born and where I grew up. And it was being devastated by a flood.

On top of a hill, the flooding did not directly affect my family. But in a way, it did. I filled sandbags with my mom, and helped out with the Salvation Army and Red Cross. I delivered meals in one of the Salvation Army trucks to flood victims and volunteers in the flood zones. Because of this, I experienced what it was like when the waters had left. The smell, the debris, the destroyed buildings, and all the people. I traveled down streets that had stacks of belongings all along the curb. Because of water restrictions, we used paper plates and didn't take showers. Everyone was trying to do their part to help our city recover. One of the Salvation Army volunteer coordinators from the South told us that she hadn't seen so many volunteers from a community every before and that she was there at Hurricane Katrina. Even as the national news left, along with the water, we were recovering. We were doing it together. We can't do it on our own though, we need a lot of help. But we are working on it. And so, on the anniversary of the flood, I ran a race. The flood run: race to rebuild, race to recover, race to remember. It took us throughout the flood zones, through seven miles of destruction. It has been a year but it some places, it doesn't look that way. The race report will be written later but I would like to mention that it was cloudy and raining. As I ran past this building, at the beginning of the race, the skies looked the same as they had been a year ago. The bridges were clear though, as over 1000 participants ran because of the flood.