You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Flood Thursday.
I wake up and turn on the news.
My co-workers are live.
Water is everywhere. It seems to fill my TV screen. I see police lights swirling. There is an infant being rescued by fire fighters.
It is dramatic video that I will see on the nightly news more than once.
When the hell did all this rain fall?
I look out the window. It’s dry. Madison is 30 miles from my house, but apparently it is a breaking news story away.
I dress in jeans and work boots. No shirt and tie today. I’ve done this a time or two and I all ready know what my future will be, without even being told.
I’m the first day side reporter into the newsroom.
The normally bustling office is empty. The anchors are still on the set. The producers are still in the booth. The reporters and photographers are still in the field.
I walk up to the internet girl.
I show her a text I just received.
“Have we been here?”
The picture is sent to me by a cop who is in the Madison area. A building is off its foundation and bricks are strewn across the parking lot.
“No. Where’s that?,” she says eagerly wanting to post the picture.
“In the flood zone off Gallatin. I’ll get it,” I say calmly.
I drive 20 minutes north of the station, my head on a swivel.
It’s wet, but nothing out of the ordinary. I’m afraid I’m going to somehow drive by a building pushed off its foundation by a flood.
That worry doesn’t last long as I stumble upon aquatic chaos.
As I crest the hill, I see a congested phalanx of rescue vehicles. Lights are swirling, people are standing on the sidewalk staring into the abyss like zombies.
I park, get out, and feel the humidity in the air. It’s only 9 am but it’s all ready hot. There is mud in the parking lot and pools of water everywhere.
People are boarding up windows in store fronts, and beginning to carry soggy items to the curb.
I walk up to a man who is drenched.
“It was crazy wet,” he says. “That dumpster on the sidewalk,” he says pointing to the huge metallic green dumpster 25 yards from our location. “That was over there,” he says pointing across the street. “The water pushed it over here.”
A police car races by. Then a fire truck follows. The sirens are loud and stop my interview. This will be the case all day. If the flood is the turkey, the sound of rescue vehicles is the gravy slathered over the top of it all.
I speak to another man by the dumpster. He is staring across the street. He is blank, dazed.
“I’m angry” he says. “I own that bakery. I see the pink building with La Panaderia written on the window. “We got flooded out in 2010. I just don’t think we can stay here anymore. No insurance wants to cover this” His words are empty. He is spent. “I’ve been here since 5 am. They won’t let me across the street. Gas leak,” he says, his words trailing off.
I cross the street. I move up to the crime tape. The cops are guarding the building. They tell me that the power is off and the codes department is on the way to check the structural integrity of the buildings.
I will talk to a woman who says her sister, a mother of 3, lost her house in the morning’s flood. They are staring at the swollen creek as water still explodes through the storm sewer under the street.
I will interview paint store employees who show me the mud on the 2nd level of the shelves in the lobby.
I will talk to citizens, sopping wet, who will tell me that unbelievably this over night flash flood is worse than the devastating 2010 floods.
Our weather team will report that 7 inches of rain fell in the morning hours. That is absurd.
By 9:30 I am done. I have interviewed 5 people, shot close to an hour of footage. I have loud and soft and poignant.
I call my boss at the morning meeting and I tell him what I have.
“You’re a rock star,” he says over the speaker phone.
He will later ask me how my day was.
“Fun,” I respond.
He laughs. “You love this don’t you?”
I smile.
It is hard and sad for so many, but to me, also satisfying.
I will do 3 live shots in the evening, throwing bricks, walking into businesses full of people hauling out equipment. The other stations are locked down with 3 point lighting and seated in director’s chairs.
I am all over the place, moving and talking about whatever pops into my head.
“I forget how good you are live,” my boss will say the next day.
The 4 pm producer will later tell me how much she enjoyed my antics.
I’m glad.
I grab a beer after a hard day’s work. I am watching preseason Titans Football. I am still wet, my pants covered with mud. I feel like a news warrior.
It is a long day, but a good day.
Life’s Crazy™