Chapter Seven: Help’n Out in Harrelson Corners
Flo saw Nate approaching. She picked up her skirts, rushed down the steps and ran to embrace Nate. "Oh Nate, I was so afraid that you were caught on the road in that flood. Praise the Lord, you're safe."
"Aunt Flo, this is Hester Mooney. She and I both were nearly caught in the wall of water coming down Buzzard Creek. I slept at her and her daddy's cabin last night. This morning we could see what happened to Harrellson Corners and came down to help."
"Hester, thank you for coming. You too, Nate. We need the help. Most of the people that can are already working on checking for trapped survivors and seriously injured. There are a lot of bodies, but they'll have to wait. Same with the dead livestock." turning, Flo grabbed one of the two shovels that Nate was carrying, and Hester the other, and Nate followed with the heavy pry bar. They Walked down to the only large building left standing. Years ago, It had been the one room school house. A large lock prevented their entry.
"Bust the lock off, Nate. This is going to be the headquarters for the rescue and salvage jobs." The lock now off, they went inside and Flo outlined to Hester and Nate her plan.
Nate was to organize men and direct their efforts, concentrating on locating trapped survivors assembling crews to free them.
Hester would locate the women and girls that could work and organize them to take care of the injured. She would send the women not already occupied, to Flo in the schoolhouse. Some would prepare a makeshift hospital; others find a place to bring the dead so their families could claim the bodies.
Flo would coordinate all the activities from the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse had two eight-foot long, slate blackboards. On those, she would list the names of the missing, confirmed dead, locations of the trapped survivors and any needed supplies or tools to free them. She would assign people to the various tasks.
With a final instruction, "anyone you see, man, woman or teenager not already working send them here for assignment. We're going to see some terrible things. God help us all to be strong," said Flo dispatching Hester and Nate.
After Nate and Hester had left, it at first seemed eerily quiet. Then all the sounds of a disaster finally broke through. Flo walked to the front door of the schoolhouse where she had an almost clear view of the destroyed side of the town.
Somewhere a cow trapped and in terrible pain, bellowed.
Three men were frantically working to free a moaning, crying five-year-old Mary Ellen Johnson from the mud. All three rescuers on their knees in the mud, forcefully lifting, tugging. The heart wrenching screams of the child cut right through to become not just a sound, but pain that was real and agonizing to anyone who heard. One last tug, and the child was free. The terrible screams became sobs of relief.
Again screams, but now screams of joy from the men at their victory. Mary Ellen handed to a nearby woman. Was that her mother?
Sobs of grief could be seen and heard from several locations. Over there to the left young Sam Stuart has found his twenty year old wife, Beth. Her body twisted grotesquely, arms still tightly clutching nine-month-old Adam to her breast. Both drowned.
Shouting from over there. Men gesturing wildly. Nate running across the muddy field with his pry bar. Several doing their best to hold the wreckage of a building off the poor soul trapped under it. Nate there now, pry bar in place. Nate and two other men lifting with all their strength. The other rescuer flat on the ground helping another survivor out. Another cheer, but already the men looking for where they're needed next.
"Bang!..Bang!" There would be no hope of rescuing that suffering, bellowing cow. Better to put it out of its misery.
By mid afternoon, a place to treat the injured had been found and six women to take care of them. Twenty eight survivors were there. Three would die in the night. Two more the next day. Several more would prove to be maimed for life.
The dead were laid on the grass under the sycamore tree in the school yard. Thirteen bodies had been placed there so far. Covered with mud and stiff with rigor mortis, most were in grotesque positions.
Two sobbing fifteen year olds, Margie Rist and Judy Hittner came to Flo and had insisted that they had to help...to do something. They volunteered to wash the mud from the faces and bodies, a job no one wanted. Within the first hour of their work, they had already discovered among the bodies the faces of two friends. Thirteen year old Bobby Taylor who lived next door to Margie and had a crush on her. The other was seventeen year old Vera Fleming who was engaged to be married in a few months. Sol Hittner, Judy's father, was among the missing. With each new body Judy went to, she was terrified that the face under the mud would be her daddy.
The courage of these two young girls was soon noted and quietly admired by everyone that passed. A job that certainly no one wanted. A job as emotionally wrenching as any person in Harrellson Corners would have in a lifetime. Although sobbing their grief and horror, they cleaned face after face. When all the faces were cleaned, they started over again and cleaned more of the mud from each body.
This was a job that had to be done. It was a job they had to do for their little town and their neighbors.
From this, each of these girls would be become a very, very strong woman...or the experience would destroy her.
By dark the first day after the flood, thirty eight bodies were under the sycamore tree. A fire was built and two men were posted to keep scavenging animals away from the bodies.
Shots were fired several times during the night. Few of the people of Harrellson Corners heard them, they were so exhausted. Nor did they hear the howls of wolves in the distance.
Next morning, Charlie Franklin and Deke Baker who guarded the bodies, reported that they had heard the wolves, but none ever came close. The shots were fired at domestic animals attempting to scavenge the bodies. Some of which were surely the property of the very dead men and women laying under the sycamore.
At the end of that first day, an exhausted Flo laid in her comfortable bed staring at the ceiling and reviewing the day. Her organizing efforts had definitely made a difference. Although she would never claim credit for it, there were tonight, several people who were rescued alive that wouldn't have been.
What she couldn't shut out of her mind were the sounds. The wailing, sobbing grief-stricken people. Those sounds went on all day. There was no place in town to be free of those mournful sounds. Even if all the people you loved were safe, you had to grieve.
And, a sight Flo would carry the rest of her life. Two very brave fifteen-year-old girls, tears streaming down their faces, washing the mud from the faces of the dead.