Tales From the Flood: Brenda and Lee Stroupe
When Brenda Stroupe remembers her own experience of Haywood County’s catastrophic flood of August, 2021, she thinks about the Christian lessons of 2 Corinthians.
“The Bible says you know a man by his spirit, not by his flesh,” Stroupe says, as she recalls a community that rallied to support its flood victims. But from there she goes on to tell a compelling story of both spirit and flesh – a harrowing tale from Hidden Valley Circle, one of the county’s hardest-hit neighborhoods.
Brenda and her husband Robert “Red” Stroupe, then a Canton police officer, bought their handsome two-story log home in 2013 at the lower end of a pretty, leafy neighborhood near Bethel. Red passed away in 2016, and Brenda now lives there with their son, Lee, 23.
The house is in the bottoms, near the east fork of the Pigeon River, and it’s damp there, she says, and wet when it’s rainy, but with their house perched on a high foundation flooding was never a huge worry. As rain pelted down for the third straight day on August 17, however, she had a sense of foreboding. She’d had a nightmare two nights prior that involved flood water – and even included the word “tsunami” – and it kept coming to mind.
She and Lee were keeping an eye on the river, but hadn’t yet seen reason to worry when another son, Jerry, working in Cashiers, saw an alert that the Pigeon was rising, and called to urge them to higher ground.
Brenda balked, and Jerry called her hard-headed. “Y’all need to pack a bag!” he urged, and eventually Brenda agreed. But even as she and Lee were upstairs throwing a few clothes together, the river arrived. In a matter of seconds water swirled around both sides of the house.
Lee isn’t a swimmer, and Brenda was recovering from recent surgery, so they were at a standstill.
In the distance neighbors were hustling around, rescuing what they could, and one waded deep to pull the Stroupe’s camper to safety. Several offered to try to help them through the swirling brown current, but Brenda and Lee decided to risk it in their sturdy house. Remembering the thick flow, she says “I’ll never look at chocolate pudding the same way again.”
Lee ran to the basement to pull the main breaker and ran back up, and moments later they heard a strange sound. The eight-foot basement had abruptly filled with water, and floating appliances were banging against the ceiling.
“Son, let’s pray, or we’re doomed,” Brenda said. “We started praying and I said Lord if you don’t send an angel we’re gonna be gone.”
They got another phone connection to Jerry and his sister Joy, who were desperate for them to escape to higher ground. “Son, you don’t understand!” Brenda recalls saying, “there’s nowhere to go!” Everyone was terrified. They all had the sense they were saying goodbye. “I’ve never had fear grip me like that in my life,” Brenda said.
Outside the water roared.
Somehow, during the chaos, Brenda looked out the front window and noticed that a tall shepherd’s crook plant hanger in the front yard was nearly submerged, with only a few inches above water. But when she glanced again, more of the crook was visible. Soon there was yet more above water.
“It happened so quick, and then it started going back down, just as quick,” Brenda said.
Still, the neighborhood was torn apart. Two houses had been floated off their foundations, with one nowhere to be seen. Several more were flooded or destroyed. One man and his son were perched in a tree, waiting for help.
Eventually boats came and helped the Stroupes away.
Brenda spent the following days trying not to let her emotions overwhelm her. They stayed with Joy and her family in Canton. “It was still fresh and I’d wake up with nightmares,” she said. One night she startled everyone by shouting in her sleep “the water’s in here! The water’s in here!”
“It’s like a death,” Brenda said. “One day you handle it fine and the next day you can’t.”
The day after the flood was bright and clear, and the Stroupes visited their house.They’d lost one dog, but a second survived, and their cat showed up for breakfast, rattled but ready. Their neighbor’s bull, who Brenda sometimes hand fed – but who she’d doubted survived – showed up to greet them.
They started to sense they’d be ok.
Hidden Valley Circle was a sight to behold. Since the neighborhood was at the bottom end of the valley it was easy to reach, and an army of help had arrived.
“It was awesome,” said Brenda.
Many churches were represented, along with people from all around the community. “Do y’all need help?” was the question of the day. One man pumped the water out of the Stroupe’s basement, and a bucket line formed to muck out the mud. Another showed up with a tractor on a trailer, and when Brenda suggested they had so much help he might should seek out another neighborhood, he said “no ma’am, this is the place I’m supposed to be.”
Houses were surrounded by volunteers, carrying furniture, brandishing shovels and doing the painful early labor of recovery.
“God was using these people – their hands and feet – to do his work,” said Brenda. Before long, Bill Martin arrived. A representative of Baptists on Mission Disaster Relief Ministry, Bill has helped many Haywood County residents since the flood, and here he was at Brenda’s door.
Their home wasn’t as badly damaged as some others, but the damage was still severe, with systems ruined and water soaking into the floor on the main level.
“I don’t have the family or the means to do this on my own,” she told him. “I don’t have any insurance. I don’t have the money to pay for anything.”
Martin told her not to worry. “We’re here to help you get back in your home,” he said. “You are blessing us by letting us do it.”
Brenda’s impulse was to resist, which is a dynamic Martin has seen many times among independent-minded Haywood County community members. But he reassured her, and she eventually said yes. “Sometimes you have to learn to get rid of the pride and let God help,” she said. “Sometimes you do more harm than good by not accepting.”
Since then, Martin and his team of volunteers have been a steady presence for the Stroupes.
“It’s been amazing what they’ve done,” said Brenda, who said they’ve involved and taught Lee during their work, helping him grasp skills he would’ve learned from his father. “Personally, I long ago forgot how to shut up,” she says with a laugh, “but Bill’s always willing to listen. It’s like having a big brother or an uncle giving you advice.”
At the end of each work day, when family and volunteers gather for a prayer, Brenda gives thanks. “[God] laid it on other people’s hearts to help us,” Brenda said. “He’s used people that are willing to help.”
Rapid Re-Housing projects are supported by the expertise of Baptists on Mission disaster relief volunteers and with financial contributions made to Mountain Projects and the United Way of Haywood County.
The Stroupe’s home is one of almost 50 houses in process of Rapid Rehabilitation since the flood.
If you know someone who owns their home and needs Rapid Rehousing assistance, or if you’d like to volunteer to help with ongoing housing rehabilitations, please contact Bill Martin at 336-408-8393.
If you’d like to contribute to ongoing emergency needs and relief efforts, please call or email Mountain Projects Executive Director, Patsy Davis, at (828) 492-4124 or [email protected].
“We expect the recovery from this flood to take several years,” said Davis.
