AERIAL VIDEO: Tennessee brothers defy historic flood by building dirt levee around mother’s home

Aerial footage shows the Humphreys home spared by historic floods in the northwestern Tennessee town of Bogota, appearing like a green island amid a sea of brown floodwaters. The stunning imagery encapsulates the community’s resolve to survive during the most trying times. 

BOGOTA, Tenn. – Brothers Justin and Tucker Humphreys grew up learning how to build a levee from their father to protect their childhood home from floods. After he passed away, they would put his lessons to the test against perhaps the worst flood their town had seen in nearly a century.

That town is Bogota, with about 100 people nestled in the northwestern corner of Tennessee. Some of its claims to fame include a close-knit community, prime duck-hunting opportunities and sweeping farmlands as far the eye can see.

“To me, it’s home. To me, it’s our little slice of Heaven on Earth,” said farmer and third-generation Bogota resident Justin Humphreys. “Because, as busy as the world gets, as hectic as the world gets, here is quiet. Here is peaceful.”

That peacefulness was disrupted earlier this month by a historic flood that slammed the area. The FOX Forecast Center said nearly a foot of rain fell in 3 days, submerging many of Bogota’s homes, churches and its iconic farmlands under murky brown floodwater.

“It was a sad day for our community,” said Olivia Childress Fussell, also a resident of Bogota. “Seeing a lot of people seeing what they worked so hard for almost their whole life being destroyed, it’s really hard.”

Of the 100 homes in Bogota, about 58 were destroyed by floodwaters, according to Fussell’s father, farmer Wally Childress.

“We knew it was going to be bad, and we started moving stuff to the high ground before the rain, while the weather was still good,” he said. His home ended up being completely flooded, leading him to move in with daughter Olivia and her family.

Childress stands in floodwater in Bogota, Tennessee.

(Olivia Childress Fussell / FOX Weather)

Family helping family was a running theme throughout the flooding of Bogota.

When the forecast called for heavy rain and potential for floods, Humphreys, 38, and his brother Tucker, 32, wanted to preserve the home that three generations of their family had built – and they did so by building a dirt levee around it.

Humphreys said his father had built the levee three times before to combat flooding throughout the decades, teaching his sons along the way.

The first time his father built the levee, Humphreys said he and his brother were quite young, so they received only a light orientation on the machinery they could use. The next two times, their father made sure that the young men understood the process and logic behind it.

“He wasn’t an engineer or anything, but we like to be resilient around here and figure it out ourselves,” Humphreys said.

Drone footage shows the northwestern Tennessee farming community of Bogota after historic floods slammed the area in early April.

That resilience was tested this year, not just by the oncoming flood, but by the fact that Humphreys and his brother would build the levee around their childhood home for the first time without their father, who had passed away four years ago.

Still living in the home was their mother. To protect her, especially after seeing how the nearby town of Rives was destroyed by flooding several weeks prior, Humphreys sent her to live in his home, away from where the floods would be.  

DRONE VIDEO SHOWS FLOODING IN RIVES, TENNESSEE

On Sunday, April 6, around the time when the soil became dry enough to work with and about a week before the rains came, Humphreys said he and his brother began to build the levee.

For the next few days, they used their farm machinery to move dirt around their home – running a perimeter of around 3 acres, and rising about 6 feet tall in the front and 9 and a half feet tall in the back to account for an incline. Then, they watched in the days after as the floodwaters rose, and crested late Wednesday night.

Whether during the days the water level rose or the days that followed Wednesday’s crest when it slowly fell, Humphreys and his brother continued maintaining the levee, as the winds pushed the floodwater against the dirt they used to build the levee, washing it away.

Aerial shot of the Humphreys’s home with the levee holding back the floodwaters, plus a zoomed in shot of the home and levee.

(Randy Moore via Storyful / FOX Weather)

As the brothers fought to keep the water at bay, Humphreys said they were not alone in their fight.

Fellow residents of Bogota brought them generators and other supplies, even by boat, before the flooding became too high. Others helped bring in a plastic cover to drape over the levee and prevent the dirt from being washed away, along with sandbags to keep the plastic cover in place.

“In no shape, form or fashion was it a two-man show,” he said. “It was, by far, an entire community effort.”

Because of the community, including neighbors whose own homes were destroyed by the flood, Humphreys and his brother were able to safely stay in their fortressed home for seven days.

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Humphreys noted a couple of times when he wondered whether the flood would overtake them, but he and his brother maintained their resolve, and ultimately stood strong in their faith in God.

“Nothing’s possible without Him, however it played out was gonna be His will,” Humphreys said. “Being faithful, being focused on God, knowing his steady hand will guide us to whatever ends, to whatever means that’s we’re meant to do is the most important thing.”

He also kept in mind the man who taught him and his brother how to build the levee, to be resilient and to build something that can protect what they held most dear – his father. Humphreys said he thought of him all throughout the flood.

Drone footage through the town of Bogota after the flood.

(Olivia Childress Fussell / FOX Weather)

He now hopes that telling their story will help bring attention to his neighbors in Bogota, who ended up being displaced by the floods and are struggling during the recovery process.

Childress and Fussell started a GoFundMe page as a way to provide relief for their small town. They said they will be distributing donations among the dozens of residents who lost not only their homes, but also their hope for what the future holds.

“A lady said, ‘We’re losing all of our houses. We’re above the flood plain, and we’re still gonna lose them’,” Childress said, recalling a conversation he had with a Bogota resident. “That just touched something in us and we thought, if we could give them any hope, we’re gonna try.”

To support the people of Bogota, you can make a donation to the Bogota, Tennessee Area Flood Fund page on GoFundMe.