Ghosts of Valmeyer

Excerpted from my paper travel journal
Written circa Spring 1995

Background: Valmeyer, Illinois formerly sat in the Mississippi River's floodplain until the spring/summer of 1993 when catastrophic floods washed away lives, property, and livelihood. In the aftermath, FEMA, along with other federal and state agencies, staged a large-scale buy-out of floodplain properties. The village of Valmeyer took this opportunity to move the entire municipality a few miles east out of the floodplain and onto the bluffs.

Please pardon the melodrama; I was still an undergrad when I wrote this...



Valmeyer, Illinois -- Ghost town

I sat atop the levee -- just south of Valmeyer & north of Prairie du Rocher -- that was designed to protect the cell in which Valmeyer sits. A few feet of sandbags were still piled up on the levee, extending its height. Most of the bags were intact, as was the black-plastic-bag-like stuff holding the sandbags together. However, there was also loose sand everywhere... evidence that a big event had occurred and put the levee to the test.

All was quiet now on top of that levee and the floodplain. Sunlight silently rained down on the landscape; its quiesence interrupted only by an occasional wind making its way through the trees. The giant Mississippi meandered peacefully down its channel in the unseen distance; one could easily forget it was even there. The only body of water in sight was the tiny creek between the levees... as well as the sea of fertile soil and some emerging crops.

During the summer of 1993, this silence was broken. It was a tense silence, an eery one no doubt. At that time, I'm certain all of the sandbagsand levee-building materials were intact. It was hoped that these sentinels would hold back the swollen giant which was eager to gain access once again to the sediments it had deposited in the past throughout geologic history. The silence was tense; thousands of eyes watched the reactions of the levees to the rising water levels. In the solitude of determination, people worked to reinforce the levees. In silence, some people prayed they would hold.

Then, the silence was broken; the Mississippi ripped through levee after levee. Six minutes after the breach near Valmeyer, a rushing sheet of water sacked the town. When the water reached the perimeter of the inner side of the levee, it rose. The overworked levee was once again doing its job: holding back water. The entire cell of the levee district was now a literal sea.

Old Valmeyer is now a ghost town except for the very few renovated houses. I saw the convenience store in which we had stopped on a class field trip in the spring of 1992. It was closed now, of course. The buildings and homes of the town had no doors, no windows. They were covered, to varying extents, with river mud. Their subdued and weathered white and grey hues were punctuated by bright red signs on each house. The signs prominently stated, "CONDEMNED". If you listen carefully, you could hear the town tell a story; it cut through the eery silence. And all was quiet once again...

I wish I had been there in the summer of 1993. I wish I could have helped fill those sandbags -- knowing fully that the River would cut through those levees.