Mary Kilburn said she and her neighbors cried for two days after the flood evacuated a small town in northwestern Tennessee.
Heavy water from heavy rains on February 14th and 15th began washing the summit of the embankment that protects the town from Hoosier Creek, which is fed to the North Fork Obion River. By the early morning of February 16th, staff had begun forced evacuations, fearing the possibility of a complete levee failure.
The embankment was held, but the swollen river swallowed the streets of the rives, submerging vehicles and creeping up into the house. Approximately 200 people have been evacuatedNo deaths have been reported, county officials said.
Kilburn, 57, moved to Libbs with three children in 2017, flipping a new leaf after his divorce. She found a house while driving around town and “something kept pulling me back,” she said.
The 122-year-old home has “huge” pocket doors, a 12-foot ceiling and three fireplaces, Kilburn said. On the day she moved, a neighbor knocked on the door with a cake to welcome him to the neighborhood. The flood that came about a year later was a rude awakening. Kilburn didn’t know that when she moved there, Rives was prone to flooding.
She said she was “one of the lucky ones.” Her house sat higher than the others, and in past floods, the water made it under the house, but not inside. This time she was not home when she heard about evacuation, but by then the road had already been closed to incoming traffic.
“I don’t know, the fear of losing a home I worked so hard on (I raised three kids myself, so that’s the house I started when I bought it for us,” Kilburn said. “It was just heartbreaking to think that it could be taken away all of it.”
Kilburn was able to return to her home on February 18th when the water was still a few inches deep, thanks to her lifted truck. Water didn’t make it in her home, but she’s worried that frequent flooding over the past few years will undermine its foundation.
Of the 105 homes in Rives, around 25 have caused major damage from recent floods, Obion County Mayor Steve Carr said Friday. The entire town has experienced some destruction and Kerr hopes that the crew will patch many roads and repair the degraded dark vert. By February 21, he said power had been restored to all of the Rives homes.
Tennessee Emergency Management Director Bill Lee Patrick Sheehan and Senator David Kastoff Visited Rives On February 18th, we will begin an assessment of damage and town recovery needs.
The bad weather caused significant damage to some parts of the state that weekend, Lee said, and the recovery would be a coordinated effort between local, state and federal officials. Kustoff guarantees that adjustment, Lee said.
However, to seek federal aid, Specific Thresholds It takes time to overwhelm the state and local resources and determine eligibility.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Team Carr said he will arrive this week to provide free cleanup and repair assistance. He also collects donations to help residents cover immediate expenses.
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“Some of them are not insured, so it’s going to be a costly repair process,” he said. “I’m trying to get a donation where there’s enough money to take care of them.”
Count the cost
The economic and emotional costs of weathered floods are worn by residents of Rives.
Kilburn said that the majority of neighbors can’t afford it because flood insurance is becoming so expensive. Many are elderly or family members and are not prepared for reconstruction costs. They need some sort of relief from the federal and state governments, especially on the banks, she said.
“It seems like a big problem and it’s going to keep coming back,” Kilburn said. “If they come in and do something, our small town is safe.”
The pastor’s official agrees. Kerr said he hopes to get federal funds for the large cost to increase the levee and add a permanent stationary pump that can drive water out of town.
“We’re a little bit of a small area, but we have needs too,” Carr said during Kerr’s visit.
The town is currently using mobile pumps, but according to a social media statement from Obion County Emergency Management, it reduces the risk of a complete levee breakdown when water flows above the top of the levee (old railroad bed). I decided to shut down for it. Agent. The CN Railway, which met the embankment and served as a protection for the east side of the town, was not overrun by the water and was operating continuously.
“If the embankment had completely failed, the whole town would have been washed away within minutes, as millions of gallons of water hadn’t been checked.” The post states.
Rives’ levees and other flood control structures are not owned or controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Corps confirmed.
Hagan Payne has lived in Reeve for 24 years. His parents and grandmother live across the street.
He said the water was about the depth of the yard knees around 10am on February 16th. He went to check on his grandmother and instead met the emergency crew in the rescue team.
Payne’s house had some flooding but everything stored in the shed on the property was ruined. Payne said he just swapped those items too long ago – they had been hit quite heavily in 2023 by the flood.
He said that even having flood insurance didn’t really help with repair costs after the 2023 flood. It covered the costs of securing the air conditioning units in their waterlogs, but his annual premiums rose by about $200 after that claim.
“It’s getting pretty common,” Payne said of the town’s flooding issue. “I’m ready. I hope the state buys us.”
State or local governments can purchase certain flood-prone property from residents and maintain the land as open space, but they must first decide on the home. eligible.
Meanwhile, Kilburn is determined to stay. Her neighbors came together to help each other, she said.
However, the ordeal left their mark – after the first flood she experienced, she put some boxes of her deceased parents out of reach and said, “Looking over them.” I’m ready to go.
For now, her attention is to bring the town back to normal.
“This work has been fixed to start for everyone with all this cleanup. You never know what the weather will do,” she said.
Get the morning heading.
