Monday, April 4, 1977 is a day that will live in infamy. Loss of property and life was spread over the Appalachian area. But since I was teaching at Grundy Junior High, and living at CCYC on Baldwin Mountain, I will write on this point of reference.. School had been called off due to high water, which got increasingly higher as the day progressed. Sandy and I were glad to be staying home with our 3 year old son Laddy, who had lots of stuff to play with, along with many favorite books, including the Bernstein Bears, Inside, Outside, Upside Down, and dozens of other rainy day books... along with a Big Wheel tricycle that Laddy loved to ride in the house, even spinning the back wheels around like a race car driver.
The power was lost by Monday evening & would stay off for about three weeks I think...The two-mile dirt road to the camp had several gullies across it big enough to bury a dozen mules...…
Fortunately, I had purchased a Yamaha 4-Wheeler a few months earlier, and it sure came in handy. On Tuesday, Laddy and I rode off the mountain to the first big gully. We went back and told his Mommy that we were going to be stuck on the mountain for several days or weeks even….
Another thing that made our confinement more bearable was that a Buckstove was installed in the camp house the previous fall, and it had turned chilly after the flood, especially at night. We also discovered that we could heat water and soup on the Buckstove, along with a little bit of cooking. I did have a good supply of wood, which was covered with mining belt and was neatly stacked between the trees in front of the house.
A few days after our confinement, I rode the Yamaha 4-Wheeler off the mountain, traversing the gullies with great difficulty, riding all the way down Young's Branch to a little store on Garden Creek, where I purchased bread & milk, and a little candy & chips…Remembering I did strap a plastic milk crate on the rack to carry the groceries.
With no telephone, we were both concerned about our parents and just had to hope everyone was OK...We played the radio much of the time, but tried to conserve the batteries because we didn’t know how long we were going to need this only connection to the outside world. We were anxious for any bit of news we could get on the damage and clean-up progress.
About 10 days later, when the Dry Fork road opened up, we loaded up in our VW Bus (van) to try to go to Hurley and check on Sandy's parents, Bill & Polly Kennedy. The roads were all like dirt roads, even on 460. When we arrived at the old Grundy Hospital (Where the Comfort-Inn is now located) we met Bill and Polly. They were coming to try and see how we were. Great reunion with them and later that day with my parents, Earl and Thelma Fields at Harman. Everyone we saw had their own personal tale of survival and coping strategy. There were lots of sightseers evaluating the damage, and everywhere we looked, people were scurrying about with a broom, shovel, or wheelbarrow…or bigger items like bulldozers, road graders, or dump trucks. Many, like Bob Pugh and Harold Nickles, worked long hours cleaning out the creek beds on Prater and Dry Fork.
Schools were closed for over a month, with several schools being used for emergency shelters…
Being stranded on the mountain, I did manage to have time to work in my garden, gathering a few early spuds & planting a hillside full of corn and Hastings Half-Runner Green Beans.
All in all, it was a grand experience for us. We never knew that doing without could be so much fun…
But we were saddened to hear that Bob Crockett, Assistant Principal at Grundy Senior High, and a multi-talented man, had been drowned near his home at Hurley.... Bob had played the piano at the farcical play I was in at the Maxie Union Hall a decade earlier in 1967…. DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSSROADS. Dorsey Smith did a masterful job directing that play, and remembering that Bob really increased the suspense with his piano playing. Beager Riggsby took care of both the sound and the lighting, doing such a wonderful job that many swore a train was Roaring through the theater.
The Flood of 77 is often referred to as The Great Flood, and it did change Grundy forever. Dreams moved across the river for many a few decades later, as Sandy Shortridge sang so beautifully, but for many of us oldtimers, Old Grundy will forever be gentle on our minds.
A few weeks after things returned to normal, John Hash, a former WW2 Fighter Pilot, and my former boss at Harman Company Store, showed up at the camp. John was representing the Civil Defense Corp, and was requesting that a rain gauge be installed somewhere on the mountain top. The purpose was to give an early warning to Grundy and towns below Grundy on the Levisa and Big Sandy rivers…Of course, we said yes, and it was installed a short time later. It resembled a small spaceship, being about ten feet tall with a transmitting antenna on top…. Pretty sure that no one ever bothered it, except for myself when I would cut the few weeds that grew up around it.
As far as I know it is is still there on the mountain, and they are still coming to change the batteries every few months…Hoping early warnings can be given because even a few minutes warning can be the difference between life and death when flooding threatens.
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