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By Kris R. Cash, APR “Is Buddy all right?” Mama yelled into the phone. “Yeah,” my friend who had seen me on the Bay’s city streets answered. “He’s running around trying to get the water.” So, the first reports were made on Buddy Zimmerman, Public Works Department for the Bay of St. Louis, Mississippi. Buddy’s city was in the direct path of Hurricane Katrina, which barreled through the Gulf Coast on Monday, August 29, 2005. The Category 4 storm hurdled 145 mph winds and drove a storm surge greater than 20 feet deep into the low lying beaches and cities in Alabama, Mississippi and Eastern Louisiana. Buddy and his beloved, Bay of St. Louis, are members of the Mississippi Rural Water Association. Like most rural water folks, after ensuring to the safety of his family and neighbors; Buddy’s first thought, “How to get water to the people?”
Mississippi Rural Water brought crews with them from Florida. There were water people from Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and other key cities. Their mission: to restore water to Buddy’s city as quickly as possible. “All of the crews from rural water came down. If they hadn’t have been there for us, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Honestly, at the time I had 4 workers here. That was it, me and three other guys. Rural water more that quadrupled my crew,” Buddy stated. After all he had survived, Buddy’s determination to restore his water system to 100 percent was the driving force in his decisions the weeks following Katrina’s vengeance. It was the same force that made him stay in his home when Katrina was definitely going to make landfall right in his own back yard.
On the day that Katrina made landfall, Buddy’s morning began with a phone call. There was a family stuck on the roof of their car. Could I get to them? “I’ll get the city dump truck and try.” He quickly replied. Hanging up, he headed out the door and made it to the truck. While in route, he got another call saying emergency crews were on the scene and he could return home. Turns out, that the people rescued from the car roof would later appear in a National Geographic photo. By 9:30 a.m. he received another call. There was natural gas blowing on 2nd Street. Back into the dump truck he went and headed out to the highway. Within moments, Buddy knew things were really bad. “It is hard to imagine this and I could explain it to you but you would never imagine. I’m going down the highway about 20 miles an hour. The wind is blowing me about 3 feet side to side. I’m not turning the wheel the truck is literally moving sideways. More than just a little bit.” “Whoa. I mean you are going whoa. About that time I just looked off for a second. A piece of tin was about a foot from my headlight. (It) hit the front of the truck. Hit the windshield. Then it went away. Guess how long that took? Snap. I mean it wasn’t even a blink of the eye. It was just that fast. It was so fast that the only thing I remember was I just flinched. I remember seeing the corrugation. One frame of my mind caught that corrugated metal and that is the only way I could identify what it was. It was just so fast.” “I thought. Forget about the gas. I’m going back to the house. I turned around and went back home. It was a good thing that I did because I could have got caught down there in the bad flood waters,” Buddy reiterated. When Buddy returned to the house, he went and checked on his neighbors. Buddy recalled, “The reason I walked over (to my neighbors) is I could see the curtains flapping. The winds were blowing out of the East. The french doors were wide open and the wind was just blowing through the house. There were coffee tables upside down, water all over the floor and broken glass. They were huddled in the back room praying.” “I went in there and said. What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Apparently, the french doors had blown into the house even though one of the guys in the house had tried to close them. It seems the wind was so strong that it tossed him across the room like a rag doll, which was no light feat since he was a very big guy. Buddy quickly returned to his home and got some lumber, hammers and nails. He came back across the street and brought his stepson along. It took Buddy and three other adults to nail 2x4s across the doors. By now the wind was really howling but worse was yet to come.
“I walked out on a dry porch to the end of the house and I looked back toward the highway and there was just a solid sheet of water. Holy cow! I was realizing that was where the big drainage ditch was and water was just coming in (fast). I walked back and I was walking in water about ankle deep.” “I left there and went back to my house and a window had blown in while I was gone. I ran and got some wood and tacked it up with a couple of nails.” “Everyone was talking a mile. I told them all to shut up a minute. We had just bought a brand new Lazy Boy living room set. Hadn’t even paid for it yet. Ya’ll if you want to save this furniture stop talking and listen. We’ve got to get this upstairs now.” “So we all pitched in together and started hauling the furniture. We made two trips up the stairs. By the time we moved the sofa and loveseat, about 3 minutes, (we went) from no water in the house. Then it was about 3 feet deep. It was amazing. Didn’t even have time to think about it.” “As soon as we got the furniture upstairs … I said, ‘Oh No! Those people next door.’ If I was waist deep in here in my house, they were neck deep in their house and the water was still rising.” Buddy rushed to the neighbors and grabbed the two women first. He came out of the back of the house and got caught in the current. The current was so strong he couldn’t hold on to both. “I had to take one of them and tell them to hold onto the chain link fence. I’m going to bring your sister to my house and I’m going to come back for you. So I brought her sister to my house and got her up on the front porch. (Then I) went back and got the other one,” he stated. “I got to the front porch and she started hollering, ‘My husband! My husband! He’s in the fence. He’s lost in the fence.’ Now this is his house. I go over there and he is walking. He is delirious and he is walking into the chain link fence. He is backing up and walking into the fence again and again. He wouldn’t stop.” Buddy yelled over the roar of the wind, “Ray! Ray! Hold on! We’ve got to go through the gate.” Buddy goes on to say, “I went around to the gate, grabbed him and brought him back around. I said, ‘Where are your two buddies, the two old guys.' He said, ‘They are right behind me.’ I looked and I didn’t see them. I said, ‘Where Ray?’ He said, ‘They are right behind me.’ So I brought him in the house (Buddy’s home). I went back over and beat on the front door, and beat on it and beat on it. That is when I got scared. NO ANSWER! So I went around to the back door. The back door was open and I went into the house. Went through the whole house, nobody there. Went up and opened the attic, nobody there. Oh no, maybe they were right behind him. I walked out the back door and figured I would bump into one of them floating.” Apparently, the two older gentlemen had gone to the front door when Buddy walked around to the back. When Buddy got all the way back around the house he saw the two men. One of the guys had a 15 year old pointer dog with him. Now that man loved his old dog. Right then, another turn for the worse happened. The dog got out in the current and the current was too strong. It took the dog away. Both old men are now out in the current chasing the dog down the street. “Instead of going toward my house they were going away from it” Buddy said. Luckily, one of the men grabbed onto the mailbox. The other one was further down the street trying to catch the dog.
The neighbor says, “You can’t make it.” Buddy’s reply, “Don’t sit there and argue with me. I said get your behind on my back. We are going to the house. I’m going to bring your right over there and put you on the porch.” Finally, after what seems like eternity, Buddy carries him piggyback all the way to the porch. Instantly, Buddy is off again to get Mr. Joe who is holding onto the mailbox saying, “My dog’s gonna die. My dog’s gonna die.” Buddy artfully says, “If you’ll let me get you to the house. I’ll go and get that darn dog.” So, Mr. Joe is brought back to the house. And guess what? Sure enough, true to his word, Buddy went back and got the dog. “The dog was further down the street but I believe it took a second wind. When I got out there and started calling the dog’s name, the dog actually came to me. He came about 100 feet to me and I went about 200 feet in neck deep water to get him,” Buddy said. At this point in the story, Buddy launches into the next phase of the saga saying, “So then we get back to the house and guess who is not there? My wife is gone. She done went out the back door without telling me. Jumped in the water and she is 5’4”. If the water is up to here on me (Buddy’s neck) it is over her head. She went out the back door and didn’t go one house over. Or two houses over. She goes 3 houses over, down the street.” “She thought the other neighbors were there. She was down there swimming. The trees were down. I couldn’t even see her. I had to go 250 feet to even see her. Then when I found her, I thought I would drown her. (She really) scared me.” She started saying, “I’m alright. I’m alright.” But, when she started back she got worn out and couldn’t make it. “I had to get her on my shoulders and told her to hold on to get back to the house. When we were in between the houses in the low spots we had to swim 15-25 feet before I could stand again. Luckily, we were going with the current,” Buddy said. Fortunately, all of Buddy’s family and neighbors made it safely to his house where they stayed until the storm surge subsided. It would still be a few days before the roads would be passable. They rationed their bottled water and Buddy started to make checks on his utility system as quickly as he could. He again mentioned that the first outside people to find him were folks from Mississippi Rural Water Association. “If it hadn’t been for Rural Water and their crews that came in, I don’t know where we would have been,” Buddy says with a grin. He continues, “We are 100 percent online with 100 percent pressure. Now don’t misinterpret that, the system is NOT 100 percent repaired. We have band-aids and booboos all over the place. The cleanup crews keep compromising the system.” However, Buddy says “We are starting to think beyond one day at a time.” The Bay of St. Louis can see a small light at the end of the tunnel as they move into the restoration phase for their water and wastewater. They are currently running assessments and prioritizing their needs. The really good thing for the Bay of St. Louis and Buddy Zimmerman is that Mississippi Rural Water Association and all of the Rural Water family will continue to send help and support for many more months to come.
Related Story - Rural Water System Discovers New Source of Help in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina Rural Water Folks are Best Described as Heads Down and Butts Up! ### |
Mississippi’s
He
can’t tell you for sure if it was day 3 or day 4 after the storm that
help first arrived; but he does know one thing. On the very first day
anyone could make it into the disaster zone, it was Mississippi Rural
Water who was first on the scene! 
“I
wasn’t going anywhere, Buddy said. “If they told me Katrina was coming
again tomorrow. I’d stay right here. Right here. I’m not bragging,
but there are 5 old people there in my neighborhood and they would all
tell you quick. If I hadn’t been there they wouldn’t be here right
now.” 
Once
this house was secure, Buddy left there and went next door to another
neighbors where 5 older people live. “Probably the youngest was about
60 and the oldest in their 80’s. They were all in the house right next
to me. So, I went in there and that is when I first saw floodwaters.”
Buddy recounted. “I was standing in the front door. And she, the
youngest one, asked me ‘Do I have flood insurance?’ No, I don’t have
flood insurance. I don’t need flood insurance back here. She said,
‘What about that water?’ Oh that is rainwater. I then turned around
and looked at it. Now, I have a real good understanding of which way
water runs. It was all running the WRONG WAY.” 
When
Buddy reached the furthest man he said, “Get on my back I’m going to
carry you to my house.” This is about 250-300 feet away in neck deep
water. 