Tuesday, May 22 – Walkin’ In Memphis
© Gordon McCall
Awoke this morning with a strong desire to get on the road South. Next stop Memphis. Today we feel we’ll begin to encounter the real south. It’s a long drive though Missouri and on to Memphis, Tennessee. Graceland beckons.
Our first stop is Ste Genevieve, a small town, not too far south of St. Louis just off Hwy 61. We’ve decided to take the secondary Hwy 61 because it brings us closer to the river. We saw that the river was flooded n St. Louis but it all seemed manageable. Here for the first time we begin to see the flooding over farmers’ fields and we notice the geography begin to change to big, flat farmland. Once the water breaches or tops the levees it will have a free run for miles and miles – a new lake can form in a matter of hours because of the flat land. It’s the first time I fully realize how important the levees are.
Weather is sunny and occasionally overcast.
In Ste. Genevieve we park near the local high school on directions from a local who says the river has flooded the local high school football field. When we arrive at the location after driving in circles for awhile, all seems benign. The football field or should I say pro stadium that many professional teams would be proud of – superb grandstand, floodlights and pro turf field that looks brand new (Football, as we know, is a serious business in the south) is dry as a bone. It sits in a major drop off to flat farmland about 50 feet below the roadway – a perfect spot for flooding but no water in sight.
Stretching far beyond the football stadium is flat farmland and then a tree line which tells us the Mississippi is the far side of that. There seems to be no immediate access to it. We drive back to the heart of the town and ask another local where we might gain access to the river. They say the best bet is the small town of St. Mary, a few miles further down river.
We’re off and running. When we pull into St. Mary’s we hit the reality of the flooding head on. The town itself is very old and “boutique chic”, as I like to call it. A lot of café’s, antique shops, health food stores, book shops, the usual gentrified and restored old town. However, there are also wonderful houses that go back hundreds of years that have been preserved as historic sites. We admire the care that has gone into preserving these pieces of history. Then we discover how close they are to danger whenever the river floods.
As we leave the village core and approach the river, we encounter a small creek. On the village side of the creek is a flood measuring stick that shows how high the water has come in years past. There’s one marker that shows it so high that the town itself would have been uinder water.
We drive the winding dirt road toward the river and notice the small puddles of water and silt here and there along its length. As we come close to the river we encounter something new to us. Massive flood gates made of what looks like steel. We find out later it seems to be aluminum. There are several of them, standing open at the moment. Upon closer inspection we realize what an engineering marvel they are. Like closing the gates of a castle and raising the drawbridge over the moat, these gates are intended to hold back torrents of water too big to imagine. They stand about 15’ wide by about 20 feet high each and there are 8 of them. They are directly attached to one end of a winding, giant levee. Just over the levee is water, the mounting flood of the river, which lies just beyond a tree line.
We inspect the gates then drive through to the river’s edge. The river is moving at breakneck speed, is very wide, and the shoreline has been pushed back by the flooding. Water splashes among the now submerged tree trunks and the wind is up a bit. A ferry is pulling in to transport vehicles to the other side. It looks like a scary proposition. If the engine on the small ferry ever fails – the current is moving at breakneck speed – and sure disaster awaits.
We encounter a family of local bicycle riders at the shore and they grant us our second major video interview. They are great people and fill us in on their life with the river and what may lie ahead. The conclusion is that they are feeling fairly secure with the levee and the massive floodgates protecting them. It could get worse but they feel ok.
We head out, destination Cape Girardeau.
This time we find ourselves in the country in a much more isolated location where the river has risen greatly and the wind has picked up. It seems the further south we go the more the flooding increases. We walk a long bridge to survey the flooding. This is the first time we feel a little spooked by what lies around us. Vulnerable to the elements would be the best way to describe it – small and vulnerable. As we stand on the bridge videoing the flooded landscape, including submerged telephone poles and electric lines about 20 feet above the floodwaters, we are hit by powerful winds. It’s very odd, the sky is relatively bright and sunny but these winds forecast a storm. We are literally pushed along the bridge a bit. It’s only hours later that we find out that Joplin, Missouri, has been hit be a massive tornado with huge loss of life and that we are on the outskirts of that weather system.
Odder still, we spy 2 local fisherman in about a 15’ boat anchored to some trees in the flood zone. We see them pull a good-sized fish from the waters, look at it and toss it back. We wish them well from afar and head out. We’re a little uneasy and figure we should now head straight to Memphis. It’s getting late in the day. All day long I have Marc Cohn’s song, Walkin’ In Memphis, in my head. I can’t quite believe we’re finally going to be there.
It’s several hours to Memphis and along the way we stop and eat, gas up and keep rolling. We notice the sky beginning to get darker with storm clouds and see more flood damage on the fields.
Finally, we pull into Memphis and decide there’s enough time to go and see Graceland. We’ll forego Beale Street. Not enough time. We also decide not to take the mansion tour but simply look at the grounds, the famous gates and wall and the airplanes Elvis flew, most particularly the Lisa Marie with the Taking Care of Business logo painted on the tail section. All in all it’s a bit of a letdown. The area around the mansion is definitely economically depressed and I wonder if this is anywhere near the Memphis of Elvis’ own day. It seems the city might have had a better looking future back then than it has actually realized. We take some photos and video and head for our motel in an area of town called South Haven. The sky is darkening and the wind is picking up.
We check in and go and have some barbecue at a local establishment. It’s good and the first time Kent has eaten southern barbecue so we enjoy the experience. We head back to our rooms and settle in.
About an hour after dark, Rich knocks on my door and alerts me to look at the tv. Reports are coming in of the terrible tornado that has hit Joplin, Missouri and the weather system is headed directly for Memphis. It’s so serious looking that I call a meeting in Rich’s room to decide our course of action should we take a direct hit in the middle of the night. We all have families back home and I feel it’s imperative we have a plan. Simple things like how do we stay in contact with each other. Where do we plan to take cover in the event of a hit.
We all agree that this is a flimsy motel without much cover. The best we might do is get in our bathtubs and pull mattresses over our heads. Ironically, the mattresses are so big in this cheap hotel that it would take a crane to move them.
I go to the senior citizen woman on night-desk duty and ask her if she has any suggestions. She says no, other than pray, which is what she’ll be doing. I ask if this area of town has ever been hit by a tornado. She says no and then she says, “Oh, wait a minute, I take that back. A couple of years ago a tornado hit right here and I had to lie face first on the floor of my house because I wasn’t going to go in my closet and put a mattress over me, even if my son said I should. When it was over we drove over to the Kroeger’s grocery store (pointing) right across the street there and the whole warehouse was gone, completely gone!”
That was all I need to hear. I went back, checked in with Kent and Rich and we went to our separate rooms. My plan is to go to the bathtub and pray with a survival kit beside me in the event of the worst. It seemed the others were planning io the same.
I have a stiff drink, turn on the tv and keep it on all night in the hope it will blare a warning if the tornado is coming in. There’s real fear among all three of us. I also feel a terrible sinking feeling that I have asked these guys to join me on this adventure and now, in this unpredictable moment, I feel a big guilt and a big sense of responsibility. Nothing to be done but stay as alert as possible and wait it out. I fall asleep about an hour later.
