WAVERLY, Tenn. (AP) – In the 100 years that Jim Traylor’s family had lived in his house in rural Waverly, Tennessee, it hadn’t once flooded. The normally shallow Trace Creek where he had fished and swam as a kid had never crossed the one-lane road that separated it from his home.
That changed on Aug. 21, when more than 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain just upstream transformed the usually placid waterway into a roiling river that rushed into his house and devastated the town, killing 20 people before it receded.
The water was already halfway up his tires by the time the 79-year-old decided to flee.
“Sitting here in the car and just watching it, how fast it was coming this way – it’d blow your mind,” he said recently. “It’s unreal. You can’t imagine.”
Traylor’s family got out safe, dogs and all, but the home his grandfather bought in 1921 may have seen its last days, barring help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He doesn’t have the money to repair it and doesn’t want a loan.