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On Aug. 18, Fountain Green experienced flash flooding causing over $1 million in damages with just over 60 percent of homes within the city being affected in some way or another.
“On Sunday that week we just had that massive rainstorm,” NS middle school math teacher Preston Cox said, “when you’d look out the windows, the houses around you were actually blurry.”
Cox’s home has seen some of the worst effects of the flood.
“I went outside to put down some PVC pipe for my downspouts out into the yard,” Cox said, “then I just heard a weird kind of growly sound.”
The water from the flood then pushed itself under Cox’s fence and into his yard.
“By the time I got into the house I told my wife, ‘We’re in trouble, big trouble,’” Cox said, “by the time we got downstairs, which was literally seconds [later], [the water] was already coming in through the windows and the window wells were staring to fill up.”
On the way down to their basement for a second trip to retrieve sentimental items, the Coxes’ basement windows were shattered by the water pressure.
“[My wife] went in and grabbed another box of pictures,” Cox said, “and I didn’t even have time to grab one and by that time the water was almost up to my chest.”
It took less than a minute for their basement to flood with several feet of water.
“For about an hour we had a river going through three windows of our basement and out the other side,” Cox said.
After the storm subsided, the Moroni Fire Department pumped the water out from Cox’s basement. It took the fire department roughly five hours to pump all of the water out.
“Once we got all the water out it was pretty dismal,” Cox said. “We pretty much lost everything [that was in the basement].”
Cox lost his weight room, a library of roughly 800 books, a double bass drum set, guitars and amplifiers, and many other personal belongings. The cost of all of his personal belongings and damages to his home totaled to roughly $175,000, none of which will be covered by insurance.
Cox and his wife, Fountain Green Elementary Principal Robyn Cox, had students that they had taught as far back as ten years ago show up to help them.
“I’m really relieved to live in kind of a rural community where people kind of know ya and they’re willing to help.” Cox said, “If they wouldn’t have showed up… to help pump water out and move things out of the house and clean up, we would’ve probably lost our whole home because of mold and mildew.”
The whole city of Fountain Green is seeing literal tons of support with a company anonymously donating an entire semi truck load of drywall for any and all residents who need it. While the company has employees local to Fountain Green, they are not headquartered locally.
“It was a shock to us when they called and said ‘We wanna donate all the drywall,’” city council member Alyson Strait said.
There are other companies offering their help as well. The Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) service company Stallings offered major discounts for homeowners whose HVAC appliances faced damages in the flood, and an organization called Sleep In Heavenly Peace replaced beds free of charge. The donations and discounts on appliances are very important to the residents as no one affected by the flood will receive any insurance compensation. Only one home that was flooded actually sits in the floodplain and was required to be insured for flooding.
“I think because over the years people landscape and landowners are allowed to do what they want with their own property,” Strait said, “they’ve landscaped the natural ridges and ditches that were originally here in the community, so when the flood hit, the majority of the homes it hit were outside of that floodplain.”
Even the home that is in the floodplain will not receive insurance compensation as the flood insurance does not insure damage to a basement.
Beyond donations and discounts from companies, there have also been over 500 volunteers and over 1,500 volunteer hours contributed.
“It has been a huge help,” Strait said.
These volunteers have come from local boys homes, the American Red Cross, local fire departments, non-profit groups, residents of Fountain Green and neighboring communities, as well as student groups from NS.
“On the Monday after the flooding happened we got here and thought ‘What can we do,’” athletic director Cheryl Hadley said. “We knew that the elementary school maybe needed help.”
After consulting with district maintenance supervisor Zac Dimmick as to how she could help, Hadley rounded up the girls volleyball team, as well as some boys from a weightlifting class, and headed to Fountain Green Elementary.
“I think we had [some boys from] cross country, basketball, football, and a variety of sports that went with us,” Hadley said. “All of the students did a great job.”
Other groups of students such as the NS softball team, Latinos in Action, and a few others went to help with the clean up on later dates. Despite the circumstances, some are finding the good in what others would consider a totally tragic situation.
“It’s such a tragic event,” Strait said, “but it’s been a beautiful thing to see everybody come together and help each other.”
