Friday night I enjoyed a great BBQ cookout with friends talking about new technology, social media, marketing, and other things of that sort. A day later I was looking out the window wondering when the rain was going to stop and by late afternoon we were beginning to see the devastation that was coming.
The Darkness
It rained all day Sunday and that's when things went from bad to worse for many people in middle Tennessee. By Sunday night the magnitude of the damage and loss were apparent. Entire neighborhoods were flooded. Building were floating down highways. People were stranded. Roads were impassable. And, tragically, some people died.
By today, Monday, the sun was out but we found out there's more damage to more places than we went to bed thinking last night. Rivers were rising all day and some of Nashville's most famous landmarks were under several feet of water. It is clearly the flood of the century (and last century.) Nobody disputes that anymore.
The sheer volume of issues seem to pile up...
- Some people are still stranded or missing
- Area dams and levees are stressed to the max
- Sand bags are literally standing between clean water and undrinkable water for the city of Nashville's only remaining water treatment facility
- Thousands of people haven't had electricity for almost 48 hours and there's no way of knowing when they will have it again
- Nashville and some surrounding counties have to conserve the limited clean water supply
- Many people don't have flood insurance because they never suspected they would need it and a thousand cumulative hours of debates with insurance providers are on the horizon
- Some roads, though dry now, are going to require major repair
The Light
The irony of a bad situation is that it brings out many great things. It's in the darkest places that even the faintest lights shine brightly.
We saw light when hundreds of volunteers got their boats out to rescue people from neighborhoods in the Bellvue area of town.
We saw light when area police, fire, and rescue departments didn't sleep for a weekend because they were busy pulling people from rushing waters.
Or consider Long Hollow Baptist Church, which was simultaneously taking on water in a lower portion of the church and serving as a Red Cross shelter in an upper part of the church.
Or perhaps some of the most enduring glimpses are seen in the report that Nashville's official volunteer hub, Hands On Nashville, is stating that all its volunteer slots for tomorrow are already full.
These are fractions of the totality of bright spots around the Nashville area that are continuing as I write this post. Nashville will recover from this. Nashville will pull out of it, and Lord willing, Nashville will sing again.
If you’d like to help Nashville, consider a contribution to the flood relief fund set up by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
Photo by Kelsy Wynns