Nashville Flood

Last week Middle Tennessee flooded.  The city of Nashville shut down.  Vanderbilt postponed its final exams.  It was bad deal.  It is a bad, bad deal.  Jamie's been out in Tennessee the last few days on a trip that was planned a long time ago.  She's seen first hand some of the damage and spent an afternoon of her vacation working.  Today she's in Clarksville and says its bad there too as we've heard it is around the entire region. 

In case you haven't been to Nashville, here's the lay of the land.  The Cumberland River flows right through the city, separating East Nashville from downtown and the west side.  It runs right by L.P. Field where the Tennessee Titans play football and downtown basically sits in the river valley.  Last Monday, the river crested at 51 odd feet, 12 feet above flood stage.  The surrounding creeks and rivers also overflowed their banks after the region received 13-17 inches of rain in two days.  The damage is widespread.  Entire neighborhoods were soaked including the West Nashville neighborhood where Jamie and I lived last year.  The house we rented will have to be gutted and restored in order to be livable again.  Our church, Hobson United Methodist, was also hit and is having their first big work effort this Thursday through Sunday. 


The waters have receded this week, but clean-up will take a long, long time and a lot of money and effort.


The national news is providing some coverage, though I can't help but wonder why Middle Tennessee has been virtually absent from the Seattle Times this past week.  The Tennessean is a better place to look for info, including non-professional coverage and some remarkable stories about the cooperation and camaraderie that Nashvillians have shown throughout the disaster.  Volunteers are already pouring forth as well; it is the Volunteer State, after all. 


Here's a music video complete with pictures.  It's heartbreaking, especially for those of us who lived there but can't be there now.  If you want to help, check out what the Disciples of Christ's Week of Compassion is doing there.  Tennessee is well populated with Disciples, and this is an organization that is an excellent steward of its resources and money.  Mennonite Disaster Service is exploring the area to see what kind of response it will provide.