After Three Major Floods In A Decade, Some In Waverly Are Unsure Of Rebuilding

Damon MitchellWPLN News

Gretchen Turner stands in the driveway of her damaged Craftsman-style home in Waverly. Turner had the house gutted after flood waters filled her home on Aug. 21.

Near the edge of Melrose Avenue off East Main Street, Ted Rice stands calmly in his decorated flower shop.

Rice, who’s lived in Waverly for decades, has been through two floods before. But none of them compared to what he saw in August.

“In ’10, it just got under the house,” he says. “And then in ’19, it just got under the house.”

This time, says Rice, the flood waters got five feet into his property.

“Home is your safe place, and when it’s gone, you’re out of sync,” he says.

Rice is one of many community members who are still processing the damage of the late August flood that killed 20 people. Flood-fatigued residents are trying to decide whether it’s time to rebuild again — or to leave.

Seventeen inches of rainfall destroyed school buildings, a grocery store and large brick-built apartment housing.

Hundreds of homes were also damaged. Many neighborhoods were displaced. It was the area’s third major flood since 2010.

Rice says this last flood may have been the breaking point for those who don’t want to rebuild just for this to happen again in a few years. Tennessee has averaged about 135 floods each year in the past two decades.

“I don’t think some of them are going to come back. I mean, they’re frightened,” he says. “I know my next door neighbor; this is her third flood too. She said she’s not coming back.”

Rice, however, wants to stay in the community. He also wants a flood wall, or some layer of protection that will prevent this from happening again.

A coalition of county leaders put forth recommendations to address the issue earlier this month.

More: Tennessee Mayors Want Lawmakers To Invest In Flood-Proof Infrastructure

But, for now, the post-flood focus has been on basic needs.

“Our short-term goals are to try get everybody rehoused,” says Nioka Curtis, the United Way of Humphreys County’s executive director.

Curtis has been at the forefront of helping displaced residents. Her group has sent out hundreds of checks to families in need.

“You know we have food. We have diapers. We have clothing — and that’s at their disposal,” Curtis says. “But a lot of people don’t have anywhere to take these items.”

She says the goal is to get families rental assistance and vehicle down payments, so they can start rebuilding.

Waverly residents have also received millions of dollars in federal assistance. So far, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration has distributed more than $9 million.

FEMA has also inspected more than 1,000 flood-impacted houses. The agency approved about $5 million in insurance claims.

Still, Waverly is far from recovered. Resident Gretchen Turner says it’ll be a long time before the small town is back to normal.

Turner’s home is just a few blocks from Ted Rice’s flower shop. It was gutted after the flood.

“Right now, we’ve gotten all the walls cut out to 48-and-a-half inches,” she says, while walking through her now-empty home. “All the baseboards are out.”

Turner lived in her Craftsman-style house with her husband and daughter. Volunteers have spent countless hours working on it. While she’s happy to take all the help she can get, Turner says, she’s not totally sold on rebuilding.

“My husband literally retired on Sunday. And we have X amount of dollars in our retirement fund to last us the rest of our lives,” she says. “We can’t take a significant part of that out to invest in our house, without some assurance that this is not going to happen again.”

In Tennessee, some communities have created wetlands or removed residential properties from flood zones to mitigate the issue.

But, as for Waverly, there’s the question of how much a community with less than 5,000 people can do on its own. And how soon.

“Now, I know nothing is certain, but you know, give me some hope,” she says.

Turner hopes state and federal leaders can help the small town figure out how to keep residents safe.

With dependable housing options, she says, most of the displaced residents would likely return.