Brothers Build Clever System to Keep Their Family Home Dry While Everything Around It Floods
When the Levee Holds Up A man and his brother in western Tennessee deployed a clever system to save their family home from devastating river surges triggered by a catastrophic storm earlier this month. As the Washington Post reports, farmers Tucker Humphrey and his brother Justin constructed levees with an excavator that saved the house from flooding. Baffling aerial footage of the flood shows the home and its surrounding, rectangular property untouched by the brown floodwater that has engulfed everything else in the region. The idea of constructing a levee, a technique that humans have known about and deployed for […]
Levee Johnston
A man and his brother in western Tennessee deployed a clever system to save their family home from devastating river surges triggered by a catastrophic storm earlier this month.
As the Washington Post reports, farmers Tucker Humphrey and his brother Justin constructed levees with an excavator that saved the house from flooding.
Dazzling aerial footage of the flood shows the home and its surrounding rectangular property virtually untouched by the brown floodwater that has engulfed everything else in the region.
The idea of constructing a levee, a technique that humans have known about and deployed for many thousands of years, was passed down from the two brothers' father, who died several years ago, according to WaPo.
"Just normal things around here," Tucker Humphrey told the newspaper. "Doing what we have to do to save the house."
Aerial footage shot last week shows a home in the northwestern Tennessee town of Ridgely appearing like an island amid a sea of brown floodwaters. The property was protected by levees the family had constructed, preserving their home as the area around them was devastated. pic.twitter.com/qffDbaKXXL
— FOX Weather (@foxweather) April 16, 2025
Paul Wall
To protect the home, the pair constructed a barrier up to nine feet tall in certain places.
And as it turns out, the artificial embankment was sorely needed. In just hours, the Obion River, which runs adjacent to their hometown of Bogota, rose nine feet at the beginning of April.
Around 100 people had to be rescued in the area. The storm itself, which tore through much of the South, killed more than 30 people.
The Humphreys have no plan to move away from the flood-prone area, and are ready to construct even higher barriers.
"I’ll build it 30 feet tall if I got to," Tucker told the WaPo.
More on floods: Flood Wreaks Havoc on NASA Spacecraft
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