Two days after flood waters from the Current River crept through Carter County, the once flat gym floor at Van Buren High School, home to decades of basketball games, was a wet, uneven mess, with the squish of trapped flood water sounding with each step.
Three to four feet of water from the river, which crested at a record 37-feet, inundated the high school gymnasium as well as the lobby and various classrooms and offices.
Surveying the damage Monday, May 1, after water began to recede, boys basketball coach Adam Epps couldn't believe his eyes.
"It's just kind of gut-wrenching, I really didn't want to go in there," said Epps who was one of the first to arrive that morning.
"You think about all the memories that have come on that floor and all the good teams that played there. You still have that, but at the same time a little piece of that is gone."
The high school and elementary school, a few hundred feet apart, were two of several buildings in the Van Buren area so damaged by the flood that they will require extensive repairs before they can reopen.
An estimated 180 homes and 40 businesses were affected by flooding in Van Buren alone.
In it's wake, the flooding left a vast amount of damage to the high school gym, destroying uniforms, basketballs, the score clock, the sound system and the scorer's table, Epps said.
"It's all destroyed and it's pretty catastrophic," he said. "At the same time, there are a lot of people who have been here their entire lives that are a lot worse off than we are, and who have lost homes and things that they worked their whole lives for."
On Tuesday, crews hired by the insurance company working with the school district, about 60 men and women, began tearing out the wooden floor that hosted a gym full of people during prom three days earlier. Epps added that many people took pieces of the warped, wet wood left over in piles as mementos.
Water also reached the bottom four rows of the bleachers that line both sides of the gym. Crews began tearing them out seat by seat Wednesday and vacuuming up the brown, muddy water from the concrete floor that remained.
The costs to repair are covered by the district's insurance, according to Epps, who expects most if not all of the new floor repairs to be completed by the time school starts next August. Plans are in place to start constructing a new floor as soon as possible.
Others are not as fortunate.
Epps said a couple of his players and students had homes that were destroyed or inflicted with severe damage. He and several members of the baseball and basketball teams helped clean up and salvage what they could in the days after the flood.
The baseball team's field was not flooded but heavy amounts of rain kept the Bulldogs from practicing on it for a few days, baseball coach Jacob Black said. During that time, the team got together and helped out teammates affected by the disaster as well as members of the community.
"It gave us a chance to show the guys that there are bigger things than sports out there," Black said. "We all want to give back any way that we can."
The Bulldogs (14-2) have continued to stay focused and thrive in the wake of flooding, winning seven straight and 13 of their last 14 games while grabbing the top seed in the upcoming MSHSAA Class 2 District 2 Tournament. And for a community that is now picking itself from the biggest flood in more than a century, winning a district title could go a long way.
"Our mentality all season, and especially since this happened, has been 'we over me,'" Black said. "It's tough on our town but this is a pretty resilient community and everybody sticks together. Anytime we can shine a brighter light on a bad situation by going out and winning a ball game for our school, our community, it can have a big impact."