Nashville is down, not out

Flooded Nashville by www76The Nashville/Middle Tennessee area received 25% of its average annual rainfall in 48 hours on May 1 and 2, 2010.  Some meteorologists have called it a 1,000 year flood.  That’s no typo, a one thousand year flood.  Cars and even some buildings were swept away.  Perhaps tens of thousands of homes are flood damaged in Nashville alone and most probably don’t have flood insurance.   Outlying rural area were hit hard as well.  Having said that, most of us had no damage at all.  While the images you’ve seen are Katrina-like, make no mistake, this was no Katrina.  But for the people affected, the ones who lost it all, it is their personal Katrina.

In light of that, I am so very proud of this community.  Criminal activity has been minimal.  Neighbors are helping neighbors.  The only reason the entire city of Nashville has any drinking water at all today is because 400 inmates volunteered to sandbag the city’s sole functional water treatment plant.

Pattan Fuqua of section303.com said it best.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

If you want to know how you can help, Nashvillest is keeping a post up to date with all volunteer information.

Photo credit: www76, Flooded Cumberland