After the Flood

I have spent the past two weekends trying to help people recover from the flood. One friend had a 5-foot diameter poplar tree fall and crush her house and both cars. I spent an afternoon using my chainsaw to help clear smaller trees that had been taken down with the big one.

Last weekend I helped hang drywall in a young woman’s home in Bellevue that had had around 4 feet of water in it. Every home on her street was ruined. Her husband is serving in Iraq, so she was alone. Here’s a picture of a typical street in Bellevue:

What’s amazing is how everyone is helping each other out. As far as I know, there has been very little looting. Here’s some more pictures:

This is about a mile from my house, on the day of the flood:

This is a picture from Antioch Pike:

Here’s a sofa that was left high and dry in Cheatham County:

Here’s a guest room in the Opryland Hotel. Notice how high the water got:

Here’s a picture of downtown Nashville. Even after the rains stopped, the river kept rising.

It’s hard to convey how widespread the flooding was. It covered North Nashville, Antioch, Bellevue, Franklin, Brentwood, downtown Nashville, basically everything. It is going to take years to recover from this.

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The Great Flood of 2010

It’s 1:00 pm, May 2, 2010, and we have had nonstop rain since yesterday morning. Here’s some video of Page Rd, which is just down the street from our house:

Compared to other neighborhoods, we aren’t in bad shape at all. For example, check out this building floating down Bell Rd at I-24:

It’s supposed to rain even more tonight. We’ve filled up some jugs with fresh water in case the Metro Water Service gets contaminated.