“Am I going to die today?” Billie Call asked her son, Terry. “Is this the day?”
“I told her no, that we’d find a way to get her out,” Terry Call said Thursday.
But in the back of his mind, he fought increasing worry.
“She was shaking so bad from standing there in that cold water. She thought it was the end, asking me over and over if this was ‘the day.’”
“It was a flood like no other,” he said of the April 28 rains that overwhelmed his childhood home and where his elderly mother still lived.
“We went to bed Saturday night and the river was at the 16-foot mark,” he said of the Neosho River’s flood stage, which is 15 feet. “It was predicted to reach 18 feet by morning. To get up to Mom’s house, it’s gotta be 21 feet.”
At its peak, the Neosho reached 19.89 feet on April 28.
“We kept watching the level of the Neosho but turns out it was Elm Creek and the smaller ones that we needed to watch.”
For years, the family used a stately tree across the field from their home on South Vine as a marker for rising waters.
“If the water gets up to the tree, it’s usually 12 hours before it reaches the house,” he said.
Not this time.
At 4 a.m. the water was at the tree. By 5:15 a.m. it was a foot deep in the house.
“Mother Nature can really make you an idiot,” Terry said. “I went to bed thinking Mom would be fine.”
For Mrs. Call, a trip to the bathroom at 4 a.m. alerted her to the situation.
“While she was in the bathroom, her feet started getting wet,” Terry said. “Right away she pressed the medical alert button she wears around her neck.”
