Kingsport Firefighter Tells His Story About Assisting Nashville Brothers After Flood
Posted on July 18th. Submitted by Lynn Feagins. On May 1 and May 2, 2010, the city of Nashville and surrounding communities received almost 22 inches of rain. The resulting floods that devastated the area left 22 dead and thousands homeless. There were countless rescues in many different areas in and around Nashville. The Nashville Fire Department conducted many of these rescues and assisted thousands to safe areas and shelters, all while having to deal with the loss of some of their own homes and belongings. I felt that I needed to do something to help our brothers and sisters who had been displaced and lost everything to flood waters. I called my Local President, Matthew Sorge, and asked him if he had heard of any relief efforts being started. Matt gave me the number of Gary Moore, the president of Local 140, the Nashville Firefighters Association. Of course, Gary was being inundated with calls and trying to get so much done for his guys, but he was very gracious to me. He called me with information as he recieved it. He gave me the number of Mark Young, Vice President of Local 140, who was going to be in charge of the relief efforts. I started talking to Mark about getting together some building materials that our brothers/sisters would need to make their homes livable again. As busy as Mark was, he returned my calls when he had more information and told me they would be needing all types of materials such as: sheetrock, sheetrock tape, screws, sheetrock mud, and tools, etc. I contacted Bill Anders, our Vice President of Local 2270, who told me to get more information as to what size of materials they needed. Local 2270 officers approved donating $500 either in monetary donations or building materials to Local 140 relief efforts. I passed on to Vice President Anders that anything we decided to buy would be used. He talked to a First Kingsport Credit Union Representative who also donated $100 to the relief efforts. VP Anders went to our local Lowe’s Home Improvement Store and purchased $6oo dollars worth of materials and had them deliver it to the warehouse that Mark Young had secured in Nashville to store donations until the work could start.
Mark Young, Vice President of Local 140, and I began having conversations about coming down to work on getting our brother/sister firefighters back in their homes and he told me he would let me know when they would be starting work. Mr. Young said they first had to obtain permits from the city to start building their homes back. I decided that I would go down and help as soon as I heard something back. I went to Nashville on my first trip on May 30, 2010, the Sunday before Memorial Day. When I arrived, I was met by Mr. Young himself who came to welcome me and secure me a room at the Ramada Inn in Lebanon, Tennessee. They had been working with Local 140 in housing out of town workers helping with the relief efforts. I was also met by a brother firefighter from Jersey City, NJ who came to Nashville on a Greyhound Bus six days after the flood to help. He had been working in downtown Nashville tearing out the water soaked materials. Mr. Young was told about Tom sleeping in the warehouse and other places a few nights. Mr. Young then arranged for Tom to be put up in the Ramada Inn.
On Monday, Memorial Day, Mr. Young came by the motel and we followed him out of town to a camp for burned children that is sponsored by the TN Burn Foundation and Local 140. It was amazing to see firefighters working at this camp, after all they had been through. This was the first day of camp and we went to visit with the kids, helped out any way we could, and got to see what the camp was about. We ate lunch with the kids and toured the facilities. We were given a huge welcome by the camp staff. On Tuesday, we went to work at the warehouse, where we met our Tennessee Professional Firefighters Association President, Eddie Mitchell, already there, unloading sheetrock from a tractor trailer with a fork lift. We helped him finish unloading and stacking the sheetrock. We then started delivering sheetrock to the firefighters who had been given permission to start putting it up. President Mitchell let us use his pickup truck to deliver the sheetrock while he was working at the warehouse. Tom and I delivered sheetrock to a condo community where one retired firefighter and two other firefighters lived. We then started hanging sheetrock in the condo of the 89 year old retired firefighter who had walked out, in chest deep water, the day of the flood. We worked there the rest of the week trying to get his sheetrock hung. When I came home, we had lacked one bedroom and two bathrooms from having his home ready to be finished and painted. We were helped at this location by a son-in-law and two other Nashville firefighters, one who lived in the community and had severe damage himself. He worked with us until he received permission to start hanging his own sheetrock. While I was there, I only paid for one meal and was treated as one of their own. Tom Murphy from New Jersey was still there working when I left.
After witnessing first hand that there was work still to be done, I went back to Nashville on June 14th, 2010. Mr. Young arranged for me to stay at the Ramada Inn again and Tom Murphy from Jersey City, New Jersey, was still there. He had been there working the entire time. We worked in the same condo community that we had worked in on my first trip.The second trip we worked in the condo of the firefighter who had helped us at the retired firefighter’s condo. We finished putting the sheetrock up and started finishing it. We then headed out of town to a firefighter’s home near the Harpeth River, that had left its banks flooding and destroying homes, washing out roads, and causing more damage. We worked in this firefighter’s home hanging sheetrock until we were finished. This day we were accompanied by and worked with Gary Moore, President of Local 140 and a TN State Representative for the area. He worked with us all day in the heat, dust, and dirt. How many State Representatives do you see doing that? On Thursday, June 17th, we attended the TPFFA meeting in Murfreesboro, where Tom was presented a plaque of an axe and made an honorary member of Local 140.
If the work is not done, I plan to go back to help my brother /sister firefighters who are not yet in their homes. While I was there on both visits, I was treated like one of their own. I received more of a blessing from the kindness and appreciation they showed me than I know I was able to give them. I was treated as one of the family, and it is good to know that if we needed them in Kingsport, they would be here for us. It will take them some time to get back to normal, but if we stick together as a family, we can make it easier for them. I know they would do it for us, and I am proud to say I worked with some of the bravest, kindest, firefighters in our state.
Lynn Feagins, Local 2270, KFA
Financial Donations, along with gift cards, can be sent to:
Nashville Firefighter Local 140
2550 Park Drive
Nashville, TN, 37214-2154
Relief donations can also be made through the IAFF Disaster Relief Fund at www.iaff.org/comm/charity/disaster.htm.
