The 77 Flood on the mountaintop..

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.

Remembering the Flood of 57...

Flashback to the 57 flood. I was a sophomore at Grundy High School, and the bus did run that Tuesday morning, January 29 of 1957. Upon our arrival at Grundy High School our driver, John Catron, who also worked at the Black & White bus garage just below Grundy, left to go to work there...

When we walked inside the school, we discovered that many buses did not make their runs. Going down to the office, I discovered that someone had called from the School Board Office to say schools were closing, and since Principal John Meade couldn't make contact with John Catron, he asked my Uncle Karl Reedy, who was teaching there at the time (Becoming the football coach in 1959), if he would drive our school bus back to Harman. Uncle Karl was willing of course, and that was one frightful trip back to Harman, with all eyes staring big-eyed at the rapidly rising water in the Levisa.

When we arrived at Harman Junction, Bull Creek was also raging, but Uncle Karl drove right through several places where water was in the road. Shortly after we arrived at the Harman Company Store, water was running two foot deep in the road.

Uncle Karl managed somehow to drive the bus back to his home on 460, which was located beside of the old King-Kone at the time, just below the Grundy Drive-In. The flooding was much worse within the Grundy city limits, with water lapping over the bridge that went across the river to the railroad depot, Buchanan-Williamson, and Bailey Lumber Company.

Water damage was extensive at Grundy's Main Street stores, especially in those that had basements. Accomplished writer, Lee Smith, whose father owned the Ben Franklin 5&10 store, remembers that a huge catfish flopped down the back stairs to plop in the water-filled toy section.

One vivid memory after I arrived home at Harman was watching Homer Elswick wading through two feet of water down the road past our house. Homer was just as cool as a cucumber, with not a trace of fear in his demeanor. I marveled, but didn't dare to leave the porch.

There was not a lot of damage on Harman, other than muddy roads and the Harman Baptist Church basement having a foot of mud in it,  but Grundy was flooded, and so was Pikeville, with water depth reported to be between three to nine foot deep...Damage to homes and businesses was extensive, with several deaths reported from drowning and also electrocution. President Eisenhower declared the entire region a disaster area, as damages were estimated at over $50 million dollars.

The Dime Story from my Dad...

Sharing a story my dad, Earl Gratton Fields, shared in his memory book he wrote a few months before he died in 1995.
"Money meant more back then. I remember that Granny would tell me where a hen's nest was, and she would let me take 'half a dozen' to the country store and I could trade them for a nickel's worth of candy, (a good-sized bag for a nickel he told me)...
& pop was cheaper than that, maybe a penny.
It was rare when I saw a dime... our shoe leather would generally be thinner than a dime ...when we had shoes...never more than one pair a year."...

(I think he told me once that the leather on his shoes was so thin he could tell what kind of coin he stepped on...LOL)...

"When we lived on Church Hill at Tom's Creek, someone gave me a dime. I came out of our yard and started down the lane below our house. I met two Pickett brothers and made the mistake of showing them my dime...When they decided to take it from me, I said, "NO WAY!"...

Quickly, I put the dime in my mouth and they backed me up against a fence and began choking me. Somehow, I managed to break free, and instead of me running away, they did...
Finding a rock, I threw it at them, hitting one of them in the back. He squalled so loud that everyone came running out of their houses to see what had happened. Sure did scare me....

I ran back up the hill to our house and hid behind it. Knowing for sure that I was in for it, so I didn't come out from hiding when Dad came out on the porch and called for me....

Fortunately, a neighbor, Arville Donahue, had seen what had happened and came to our house to tell dad, and dad didn't whip me for throwing the rock, or hiding even.

It must not have hurt the boy much, because after they moved to Coeburn, Virginia, they would come to visit me and even bring me something..
Not often you make friends by throwing rocks at them!"...

{Remembering that my sister Dorla threw a rock at Willard Owens once when Willard and I were squabbling about something, hitting him in the back as he ran back up the hill to his house. Willard mentioned this and laughed about it in later years.

I can remember when we would ride our bikes down to Belcher's Grocery when we lived just above the trestle that came from #1 mine at Harman. We would ride to just below the old Harman School at Harman, Virginia.
One day, we discovered that the price of pop had raised to 6 cents...We thought it would stay a nickel forever....I think I was in high school before it went to a dime....
A rare find in my day too!}...LOL