A high school senior reflects on her community’s resilience after a devastating flood

When a flash flood tore via Waverly, Tennessee, 17-12 months-previous Zoe Turner ran to security on the leading ground of her family’s house. The dashing drinking water would declare the life of 20 of her neighbors, injury extra than 700 properties and insert a new problem to what Zoe had hoped would be a a lot more typical senior calendar year of superior school.&#13

“I have under no circumstances seasoned such, like, terrible emotions,” she states. “Just feeling so uncooked.”&#13

Despite the community’s harmful record of flooding, her relatives would eventually make a decision to keep and rebuild in the months immediately after the August 2021 flood. And Zoe agreed to document and share her views and inner thoughts due to the fact then with WPLN News in Nashville.&#13

A new ordinary

In the first several months immediately after the flood, there was rarely a calm instant for flood survivors to course of action what transpired. Quite a few scrambled to discover housing preparations. Other people were concentrated on amassing what cash they could from good friends, relatives, and neighborhood nonprofits and federal authorities companies.&#13

For lots of, the Thanksgiving vacation was a unusual minute to gather their thoughts about the devastation. It stirred up challenging thoughts. Households who dropped loved kinds in the flood experienced a person considerably less individual at the supper desk, and those people displaced from their homes seemed for new spots to get.&#13

At the same time, the temper at Waverly Central Large College was settling into acquainted rhythms.&#13

“We are cramming in most of my classes, simply because we skipped the three weeks following the flood,” Zoe states. “So, that set us back again pretty a little bit, and all people had to just take a while to get back again in the swing of that.”&#13

The threat of a different flood&#13

By the spring, Zoe and some neighbors ended up back on edge when a potent storm with significant rain created its way by means of Center Tennessee.&#13

“I do get anxious if we’ve had a great deal of rain, and then the h2o starts off to arrive up,” Zoe states into her smartphone as the rain conquer down. “I know that what transpired is entirely out of the standard, but it still can make me nervous. A good deal of persons do have trauma from the flood.”&#13

A year of ‘lasts’&#13

On April 1, Zoe took component in her last substantial university guard competition at the 2022 Southern Coloration Guard Circuit Championships. It is what occupies her time, outside the house of National Beta Club in the course of the school year, and church outside the house of college. The opposition marked a minute of truth for Zoe. It was a unfortunate reminder that her higher college journey was coming to an close. Her mother and boyfriend were being in the viewers to assistance her.&#13

“1 of the things I am most unhappy about is the local community I’ve observed in guard, the mates, the amusing moments,” Zoe states. “All those minimal times that you invest together are likely to come to an conclude.”&#13

The last weeks of university had been bittersweet. On May well 18, Zoe headed to high university for the very last time. She took two finals with a combine of enjoyment and nervousness.&#13

“All of my pals and everybody, we hold reminding every single other like, ‘Oh, this is our final day.’ Like, previous evening it was like, ‘This is the past time we could request our mom and dad to slumber above and they say, ‘No,’ because it really is a university night and we have university the following early morning,” Zoe says. “I am type of a very little bit sad to say goodbye to this portion of my everyday living.”&#13

Beginning a new journey&#13

On graduation day, Zoe would get on a particular role between her classmates. In her royal blue cap and robe, the valedictorian took to the podium to deal with the group.&#13

“Do not believe about the unknown stresses of the long term or the treasured memories of the earlier,” Zoe claims to her fellow classmates, “but imagine about the current instant we are residing proper now. What we have been waiting for is ultimately here.”&#13

The night marked the finish of a chaotic senior yr that caught her total town by surprise. But surviving the flood added new layers of that means to Zoe’s senior yr, and built her more resilient.&#13

“Now I experience a good deal stronger mainly because of what, um, I and the relaxation of the group went as a result of,” Zoe states. “I come to feel really resilient. I am wanting forward to what Waverly will turn out to be in the foreseeable future and how it’ll increase.”&#13

In the fall, Zoe will leave the compact city of Waverly to examine at the College of Tennessee in Knoxville&#13

“The setting I am in right now, this is, you know, who I am. I have developed up in this article my complete existence. So quite a few individuals know me from when I was, you know, a child till now,” Zoe states. “I am sort of psyched to have interactions with persons wherever they will not presently have an thought — like know me or know what I have finished — just form of likely in with, like, a blank slate.” &#13

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