Tech Adjunct Professor Doing His Part To Help Humphrey’s County

A Tennessee Tech adjunct professor has spent the last week in Humphreys County assisting with flood efforts.

Don Sowers coordinated at the Volunteer Reception Center on the grounds and cleaned debris left from the August 21st flood. Sowers said the experience gave him mixed emotions.

“At first it is so devastating to see the amount of destruction, and of course, the horrible, tragic number of lives that were lost,” Sowers said. “But then, there is the other part of it where you see the community spirit and coming together and people giving each other hugs and a real warmness in the community.”

Sowers said seeing the flooding first hand was unbelievable. Sowers said the volunteer center was some 800 feet away from the creek and still had up to three feet of water.

“The water was so high in one of these stores that you just open the door and the mud and the water just came flowing out,” Sowers said. “We actually started cleaning that store with our volunteers and our property management company. We took out all that mud, cleaned out the shelving and we’ve turned that into our volunteer reception center.”

Sowers said at this point, the search and recovery process is complete. Now, it is a matter of doing debris removal. Sowers said he has already saw an outpouring of support from Tennessee Tech and many survivors of the Cookeville tornado.

“What we are looking for are people who would come and help to volunteer,” Sowers said. “Wear you old clothes, wear your boots and bring some work gloves. You’re going to hopefully be able to help us and help the survivors move debris from their home to the curb.”

Sowers was a cop for 10 years and taught at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy for 28 years before teaching at Tech. Sowers said the experience in emergency management helped him deal with the emotional impacts of the disaster.

Sowers said 517 West Main Street in Waverly is where one can go to help clean up.