In August, we bring a set of new full-time writers to the blog. Today, please welcome Noah Schumerth (’19), who will be writing for us on the 15th of each month. Noah graduated from Calvin University in 2019 with a major in geography and minors in architecture and urban studies. He currently lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and works as the village planner in Homewood, Illinois. He enjoys reading science fiction, writing essays, cycling, and exploring Chicago by train.
A dreary and still evening in Wisconsin was violently jarred to life by alarms from phones and an exchange of sinking realizations by all in the room.
The local dam in Manawa, Wisconsin had collapsed in the night under the weight of heavy rains, a deluge of debris and churning water likely roaring through the tiny town and surely inundating the two towns nestled downstream.
My imagination ran wild, prone to wandering from recent devastating grief of my own, and I began to fill in the gaps in what was known about the ongoing disaster.
I imagined they had always said it could never collapse, or if it did, they would have time to correct course before the dam gave way. I could imagine they sought counsel and advice on how to patch the dam, debating how to go about the repairs as water lapped against the top of the dam, murky currents from the lake oozing through the cracks of the aging and silently destabilizing structure.
Yet how hard was it to think that the dam just stood there as the conflict wore on, the dam straining under the weight of debris and mismanagement, the lack of investment leaving the structure groaning to survive? The weight of inevitability surely cast a pall across the community as the wear became all too apparent, dejected acceptance of what was to come gripping more and more residents of the town. Even as it became inevitable, would it make it any easier?
They evacuated. Friends were warned that the flood was imminent and would likely spread. The distance between all those involved increased, the bonds of daily life straining as the evacuation to higher ground took place. They sought family members or friends in a desperate attempt to find a safe place to go.
They braced themselves. Alcohol flowed from the bars on higher ground as men thought about the end of the home they had grown to love, lost in a state of utter helplessness and bargaining for some way for the home to be saved.
They protected what they could. Objects of particular affection were quietly organized and stored away, items of value placed in safes or put in places where the water could not damage them.
And then what had been denied for so long suddenly became reality, as the last remaining townspeople looked over their shoulders and saw that the concrete structure that had stood for as long as anyone could remember had disappeared, slipping into the rushing darkness as the worst fears of all involved became impregnable reality. The conflicted torrent of water crashed into the valley below in a reckoning too fast for any single force on Earth to control.
The goodbyes began in rapid succession. The tidal wave which was inevitable yet bargained with for far too long crashed forward with a horrific violence, divorcing lover of place from the place of their love, the pieces of home swirling away with everything in the path of the water with little time to save anything and less time to find closure for the home that was under siege in the angry water. Love is strong, but the water is stronger.
The attempts at consolation started all too quickly. “There’s nothing that could have been done.” “Nature will run its course.” The all-too-spiritual (and all-too-annoying): “Everything happens for a reason.” Sour affirmation deftly aimed at those trying to make sense of the ruins of their community as it washes away in a gnashing torrent, all out of the control of those who called it home.
Sympathies poured in, as aid is given by friends and the institutions around them to patch up lives lost. Their care was probably welcome and appreciated, maybe even cherished, by those in grief of what was lost.
Yet I could imagine that nothing could spare them from the searing, violent images of a home torn away by waters of a flood deemed inevitable…
***
A dreary and still evening in Illinois, just like any other, was violently jarred to life by the alarm of sudden tears and sinking realizations by the two people alone in the room.
The engagement had finally collapsed under the weight of yet another conflict about the future of life married together, a deluge of grief and churning uncertainty about the future roaring through the room and surely inundating the lives of the two lovers once nestled together.
No imagination was needed to see that they had said it could never fail, or if it did…
It was clear nothing could spare them from the searing, violent images of a home torn away by a goodbye deemed inevitable.
***
My roiling imagination faded away with the morning—all quiet again in the Wisconsin countryside, with mental chaos retreating and the rising sun revealing the true events of the night in a town a few miles away:
The Manawa Dam had only suffered a minor breach, destroying only an embankment and a single home.
The deluge promised had dissipated as swiftly as it had come; the overnight evacuations quickly canceled; the crisis for downstream communities all but averted. The dam was claimed as
doomed to fail the day before, but the full effect of such a failure had not been realized, and the effects of the dam breach were fairly negligible by even the boldest of claims.
The dam break was minor in the grand scheme of things—just as I know the grief consuming me is certainly minor in light of the grief and tragedy that afflicts our world, amounting to little more than a cigarette burn on the front curtains of a charred home.
Yet all grief has a hideous quality of becoming disturbingly imminent, swirling everything into itself like a river cut loose from its banks, no regard paid to where it should or shouldn’t go, ever-present in the daily affairs of those who live along it. Just as even the smallest flooded stream sends danger into everything it touches.
Just as I’m sure for the people of Manawa, the fear and terror of expected yet unpredictable destruction was far too imminent for far too long. What does it mean for something to be minor in that kind of place? In such a matter, a trickle becomes a torrent, a drop in a bucket becomes a catastrophic flood; the difference becomes irrelevant for those involved.
I’m also sure that for the one person whose house disappeared in the all-but-anticipated torrent of water, the dam break became a tragedy that permanently altered the fabric of their life—scars meant to be torn into the hearty riverbanks below instead torn into the fine tapestry of a single person’s life. For one soul, the dam break that had caused so little damage in the grand scheme of things had completely remade the terrain of their home forever.
Just like the dam break that remade mine on a dreary night in Illinois.
And maybe like one that’s remade yours, too.
Noah Schumerth graduated from Calvin University in 2019 with a major in geography and minors in architecture and urban studies. He currently lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and works as the village planner in Homewood, Illinois. He enjoys reading science fiction, writing essays, cycling, and exploring Chicago by train.
