The Flood Of 2026

The following story contains a few deaths due to drowning in a massive flood, together with the deaths of many fish and animals that eat the fish and drink the water of a nearby river.

The Flood of 2026

By Phillip G. Owens

Saturday morning, August 8, 2026, started out like any other day, with no warning of what was to lie ahead. It had been interminably hot and humid for several days before it started raining on Saturday, August 8, 2026. It began as an intermittent drizzle, mostly off-and-on until Monday, August 10, 2026, then it really started to pour around three o’clock that afternoon. It poured so hard, you could hardly see past your nose; it was like a white-out during a winter snowstorm, and the thunder generated by the lightning boomed so loudly, it was like bombs going off right outside your house, and shook the walls down to their foundations.

By midnight that night, the Emergency Management people were utilizing large boats to evacuate people from their homes that were inches from being flooded out.

I was rushing around my own house in a panic, trying to decide what to save of the myriad things I had inherited from my parents and grandparents over the years. I was piling photos, grade report cards from the 1960s (I’m 70 years old), and anything and everything else I could get my hands on, onto the sofa.

Suddenly, at about 1:30 in the morning, Tuesday, August 11, there came a loud rapping on my front door and a loud masculine voice telling me to get out “Now!” he yelled. “The flood waters are rising more rapidly than we first thought. We’ll help you!”

I started grabbing things, and he told me not to worry about salvaging anything at that time, that “everything will be replaced, as soon as all of the damage has been assessed.”

For some reason, I grabbed an old Seth Thomas mantle-top clock that my maternal great-grandparents had purchased shortly after their marriage. It hadn’t worked in years, but had been put away for “future repairs.” I wasn’t quite sure why I had grabbed it, but I did. I stepped out onto my front stoop, and the water was already above my ankles by an inch or two. I was assisted by a man (I don’t know if it was the same man who called out to me or another, as there were several male rescuers and about a dozen of my neighbors all huddled below blankets), in the boat.

The boat had a motor (I don’t know the size), and we were transported to a point about a mile from my house to a bus that would take us to a shelter. And as we left, I committed the ultimate sin you should never commit while being evacuated: I turned and looked back over my shoulder as we putt-putted away, and the house faded into the darkness; I was still holding the Seth Thomas clock.

We stayed at a cramped shelter for eight days living on donated food, but most of the time, I didn’t even taste it, and on Wednesday, August 19, the 108th anniversary of my late father’s birth, we were allowed to return to our homes.

The mud, the smell of dead fish, worms, and animals that drank the river water and ate the fish, had all perished, many of which had died in all of our homes. The smell from those dead and decaying animals was many times worse than any road-kill I had ever encountered. In fact, it was the worst smell I had ever come across in my entire 70 years of life; it was even worse than the county landfill of 60 years ago!

So now, my neighbors and I were wading through the mud trying to decide what to keep, if anything.

All the furniture and everything I had piled on top of the sofa was soaked and caked with mud and who knew what else and was ruined. My clothes and everything else were permeated with the god-awful smell. I took two pairs of blue jeans, five T-shirts, five pairs of socks, one pair of tennis shoes (the pair I was presently wearing), and a few other incidentals. (I kept the Seth Thomas clock—I still don’t know why.)

The Governor said he would allot $5,000 to everyone who had lost everything to “help them out.” Five thousand!!! Big deal! I am a retired real estate broker and appraiser, and I know home values; Hell, it was my job to know these things for over thirty years, for Christ's sake! I inherited my home from my parents when they died, and it was worth about $55,000 before the flood, so don’t tell me $5,000 will help out. It wouldn’t even touch what I have lost, nor will it touch the losses of anyone else. We desperately need much more than that. Much more!

I inherited my house from my parents in the year 2000, after my father died—my mother died several years before that. It is extremely painful to watch something your parents left to you to literally disappear before your eyes because all you can do is helplessly stand by and watch it happen.

Anyway, we will continue to clean up here in the flood zone, and I will continue to look for another house in which to live the remainder of my life, but it won’t be the same. This time, it will be a house on the highest hill in town. I will rebuild my life one step at a time, one day at a time, but it still won’t be the same, no matter what.

I will never regain everything that I lost, but I can, and will, go on with my life and thank God I am still alive, a little worse for the wear, but still here. Unfortunately, not so for others, but I am still alive.

As for my neighborhood, I assume many of the destroyed houses and mom-and-pop stores will be razed, and the land will be relegated to other uses, but I do not know.

Anyway, this is my story of the Flood of 2026.