Chen Huaiming is the villagers' backbone in times of crisis

"If Huaiming hadn't hurried us into evacuating back then, my mother's life would have been lost."

On July 29, Chen Baoping, a villager from Pozi Village, Luluo Town, Xingtai County, recalled, "The rain was pouring down, and my mother refused to leave no matter what. Huaiming came to the house, carried my mother on his back, and the house collapsed just as we got out the door."

The "Huaiming" Chen Baoping speaks of is Chen Huaiming, Party branch secretary of Pozi Village, Luluo Town, Xingtai County, whom local people call the "backbone" of flood control.

Pozi Village sits right beside the river channel, and the villagers' houses are built on the mountainside. Once the flood season began, Chen Huaiming kept flood prevention on his mind at all times, arranging the village committee office, the village primary school, and the sketching base as evacuation shelters ahead of time, and going door to door to inform the villagers.

The rain, sometimes heavy and sometimes light, made Chen Huaiming even more vigilant. Starting on July 18, the village loudspeakers broadcast over and over, notifying all households in geological hazard areas and all households near the river channel to go to the shelters, to avoid casualties.

The heavy rain on the 19th made Chen Huaiming unable to sit still. He went to the river channel in front of the village to check the flood situation, found that the water level in the channel had surged, and immediately called the village officials by phone, organizing transfers by area and by household, and issued a "strict order": check every household, all villagers must be relocated, not a single household left behind.

At 9 p.m., the rain grew heavier and heavier. "Chen Lilin's family just won't leave!" the village official responsible for relocating villagers said anxiously to Chen Huaiming. "My child is getting married next month, and this house I just fixed up is my life!" Before Chen Lilin could finish speaking, Chen Huaiming got up and, with others, carried him out.

At 11 p.m. that night, all 225 households and 784 people in the village had been relocated to the evacuation shelters.

The torrential rain and floods dealt a severe blow to Pozi Village: a total of 52 rooms collapsed, 246 rooms were left dangerous, roads, power lines and communications were cut off, and farmland was washed away... But because of the early relocation, there was not a single casualty in the village. Chen Huaiming said, "At critical moments, if Party members and officials keep their composure, the masses can feel at ease and be at peace."

The river channel running through the village splits Pozi Village into two parts. At the shelter on the south bank, Chen Huaiming did not see his wife at first. Early the next morning, filled with unease, Chen Huaiming walked along the dangerous bridge cracked by the flood to his own home. The door was open, two rooms had collapsed, the three-wheeled cart was gone, the sheep and chickens were gone too, and no one answered when he called out... His mind went blank.

With the villagers' help, he finally found his wife, who had taken shelter at a neighbor's house, and only then did his anxious heart settle.

Before the floodwaters had receded, Chen Huaiming began arranging to clear the river channel and build an embankment to protect the village. The town brought in an excavator, but no one in the village knew how to operate it. Then he thought of his son Chen Peiyu, who drove an excavator at a municipal engineering company, and almost without allowing any objection, ordered his son to rush back to the village immediately. His wife did not rest either; he assigned her to cook at the shelter.

The village Party secretary's whole family joined the effort, and the masses, seeing it and feeling warmed at heart, also pitched in one after another, going out into the streets to clear debris and silt, reinforce the collapsed street sections, and help the repair crews restore power, working with tremendous enthusiasm.

Once the roads were cleared, relief supplies from outside gradually arrived in the village. Chen Huaiming posted a notice that relief supplies would be distributed centrally by the village. He led by example: even for a bottle of purified water, he waited until he was called to collect it, and never gave himself the slightest "convenience."

Villager Chen Guixiang said that once, Huaiming was so busy that by noon he still had not had time to eat breakfast, and when they stuffed two baked cakes into his hands, he insisted on refusing them because he considered them "relief supplies."

Wang Luming, the township official assigned to the village, had been in Pozi Village throughout the flood fighting, emergency rescue and relief work. He said with emotion that the flood had not torn the people's hearts apart; under Chen Huaiming's leadership, the villagers not only did not complain, but also worked with one heart, and all the work proceeded smoothly.

Villager Wang Cuiping contracted 50 mu of land to grow potatoes, had just harvested 10 mu, and the rest was all washed away by the flood. "If they're washed away, we'll plant again. With the village Party branch leading us, we can weather any difficulty, no matter how great," Wang Cuiping said optimistically.