The Mother of All Rainy Days

I'm never more aware of my membership in a community than when the community is shaken. Over the past three days, if we had not tried to leave our neighborhood, we might never have known that anything was amiss. Miraculously, we've had power, water, and our home is dry inside. We might never have known.

But we do know. Life in middle Tennessee is amiss.

(photo: off Harding Rd in Belle Meade)

Much of the midstate has been under water since Saturday. That sounds like hyperbole, but if you live here, you know it's the truth. I started to tell my mom that the flooding was especially bad in Bellevue, but then I had to admit Franklin got hit hard (see this video), as did East Nashville, and actually some think Sumner County is the worst, but then I heard about fires and flooding in Brentwood, and now downtown is getting the biggest surge...And that's just the greater Metro area. This is the wettest month on record in Nashville, and it's May 3rd.

And now I have to insert a confession: I have never really appreciated flooding. I've never seen it up close. It looks bad from afar (Katrina, of course), but I don't hear "chance of flash floods" and respond with alarm. It sounds like something that just happens to the river bank. Even Sunday morning it felt a little like a blizzard; events cancelled, travel prohibited, ongoing precipitation...

But it's so much worse than that. Now I see that snow stays outside. You can pick it up and move it. Water is invasive, destructive, and relentless. It's the only weapon that's ever been used to nearly wipe out the planet. And this is tons and tons and tons of really dirty water (think river+trash+sewer). A portable classroom floated down interstate 24. The car dealership 1/2 a mile from our house now has 40 really expensive buoys (SUVs). Our neighborhood is an island. The park is a lake. And many subdivisions are submerged.

Probably the most devastating is the fact that so many houses that have flooded are not in the flood plains. That means the owners had no reason to expect flooding -- or to buy flood insurance. What do you do with a mortgage on what is now a pile of driftwood? Can you salvage a home that's been standing in 6 feet of water? What about 10 feet?

And so I've been sitting in my dry house, drawn to the TV coverage, following friends on Facebook, experiencing a traumatic event that's not really happening to me. But it's happening to my community. And there's the rub. Just as I felt shock and grief after 9/11, I see myself processing this event as the member of a larger whole. I'm shocked by the way my world looks today. I'm scared for the people who have lost so much. I'm pierced by the knowledge that I came so close to losing that much. I'm eager to help, to alleviate some of the grief that people just like me are feeling tonight.

We've been stuck on our island, unable to help, but I'm hopeful tomorrow the waters will recede and my community will have the organization and perseverance to see this through - to help those who need it until they're back on their feet, until they have clean homes and roads and electricity. And to make sure future development does not encourage this kind of devastation.

In the meantime, I am oh so very thankful. We did not pick our house with its elevation in mind. Only God knew how important it would be.

A FEW MORE PHOTOS that don't nearly capture it...

One of several houses destroyed by flood-induced fire (in Cottonwood subdivision 10min from us)

The street & stop signs in the middle-left are 0.3mi from our house.

Downtown Nashville

10 feet of water inside Opryland Hotel