Terry Lamb opened his front door on the morning of July 11, he expected to see rain. Instead, he saw floodwater creeping toward his Tennessee house.
“Lord, when I opened the door, there was water,” said Lamb, a 70-year-old farmer who was born and raised on his family’s land. “It was within, I guess, 12 foot of my house.”
Heavy rainfall that morning triggered roughly six mudslides and landslides across Cocke County’s Del Rio area, according to local news reports, with flooding concentrated along smaller waterways and mountain runoff.
For Lamb, a third-generation farmer, the damage to his property surpassed what he experienced during Hurricane Helene two years earlier.
“It was worse for this time up here where I live than Helene was,” Lamb said. “I got more damage from this time than I did Helene.”
The flood covered two of Lamb’s fields, submerged his driveway and undermined the bridge leading to his property — a structure Helene had already weakened.
As the water rose, Lamb watched his cattle scatter, some attempting to cross the swollen creek that ran through his land.
“I thought half my cows was going to get drowned,” he said. “I seen that happening and I said, ‘Lord God, I’m going to lose my cows.’ And I just come in the house and started praying.”
Lamb prayed for the safety of his herd and for a way across the rushing water himself. His cattle were swept downstream as they tried to cross, disappearing under the current before finding footing and clambering out, a moment which Lamb attributes to answered prayer.
“It had to be the grace of the Lord, they got across the creek,” he said.
It took Lamb’s son three hours to reach him after the flooding began, leaving Lamb stranded and anxious. “Here you are stranded on an island, nobody,” he said.
Help on the way
Word of available flood relief reached Lamb through his church, Piney Grove Baptist. Members there connected him with local contacts, eventually leading to Dale Moles, who leads the heavy machinery crew at God’s Warehouse in Morristown.
Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief, working alongside the God’s Warehouse crew, arrived on Lamb’s property Aug. 27 and again Sept. 3.
Using a concrete pump truck, crews stabilized the bridge’s washed-out footings, pumping concrete beneath the structure on both sides to reinforce it — all at no cost to Lamb.
“I never seen nothing like it done before,” he said.
When Lamb tried to thank the crew, he said they redirected the gratitude. “They said don’t thank us, thank God,” he said. “I thank both of them. Thank God and them too.”
The flood struck just six days before the second anniversary of his wife’s death.
Despite the compounding hardship, Lamb said the experience deepened his sense of God’s provision.
“I’m just thankful,” he said. “Thankful for the good Lord, what he’s done for me.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
