Today, my roomate Mandy and I joined ‘Hands on Nashville’ to help clean up Nashville after this past weekends notorious flood. Potentially over one billion dollars worth of damage! It’s so unbelievable driving through ‘normal’ neighbourhoods and seeing basically entire contents of people’s homes in a sopping, decaying mess out on the curbside awaiting disposal. Everything gone.
Check out the video
The water came to the ceiling of these homes… so many of these owners didn’t have ‘flood’ insurance. Apparently over here you have to actually be somewhere that potentially ‘could’ flood to even be eligible! This flood was the worst on record for like 500+ years they are saying… so no one’s even seen before what a storm of the weekends caliber could do, so many people were caught off guard! So, many of these home owners have lost everything, have no insurance and face the potential fact that their home may not even be salvageable after being under 10feet of water! Saw one guy talking on TV tonight about the fact that he DID have flood insurance but his contents weren’t insured because the insurance company failed to tell him it existed and for even just a couple extra dollars a month!
So today we took about two hours working on two homes clearing debris and major mounds of smelling, water logged, lifelong investments… memories… hobbies… collections… furniture… Everything basically reduced to rubble. So so sad. One of the houses literally had hundreds of old records! I’m sure some of them would have been worth a mint.
We joined with lawyers – who’s carparks were flooded… teachers who’s schools were still closed… musicians who play for big time country artists… ‘full time volunteers’…. anyone… who could spare a few hours to lend a hand. It was awesome to see. People who were unable to attend their own jobs because of the flood… came out to help out someone they don’t even know. It was incredible. Nothing appealing about it… one girl I was with shared, on the brink of tears, the fact that her house just a street away from where we were was safe and sound, like nothing had happened!
Nat in Nashville at the Opryland Hotel pre-flood
Another of the most impacting moments for me was last night driving over to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. This hotel has almost 3000 rooms and is a ‘must visit’ tourist destination in Nashville. I’ve been there SOOOO many times and with so many out of town guests! It normally has tree’s and beautiful rivers and waterfalls and all natural growing plants… inside. At Christmas time it is a fairy light wonderland with millions of lights everywhere. So beautiful. This picture above was when my great friend from home, Natalie visited in 06 INSIDE the hotel. An absolute masterpiece.
Now it looks like this … ten feet under water! The cop I was talking to last night down near the Opry said that they may be forced to look at rebuilding. They only had 50 million in ‘Flood’ insurance and apparently the damage here could be in the hundreds of millions! Apparently the food storage area is in the basement…. arg… imagine how nasty this clean up will be! The Opry Mills mall has runaway Piranha’s on the loose after ‘The Rainforest Cafe’s’ fish enclosures smashed!
There’s lots of talk about the limited ‘national’ news coverage about this ‘State of Emergency’. I wonder why? Is it because there’s barely been any looting reported…. or because ‘The people of Nashville’ (and surrounding areas) have rallied together like an army to help a neighbour out? It’s pretty surreal seeing the city I’ve lived in for the past four years turn into such a disaster zone… AND have 12 people lost their lives in flood waters! Many houses are still underwater… so the clean up is going to take months.
If you’re not from here please help by donating to Red Cross or get a team of friends together and come on down on a little ‘mission’ trip! Let me know I may be able to help facilitate this.
Volunteer. Hands on Nashville has an incredible system and you can come for three hour shifts. Everyone living in Nashville should have a go… even just once. Reality will sink in once you drive out there and see whats going on. Your soul will be messed with…
For those of you who have been affected by Nashville’s Flood my heart goes out to you. And I pray you will find your source of strength and provision in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is some encouragement for you
Isaiah 43:2 (New International Version)
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
We are all going to have the ‘When’ moments in our lives at some point or another… but God promises to be there for us amidst our storm… whatever that looks like for you.
See previous Nashville Flood post here.
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[...] I was hearing the same devastating news in Nashville when #Flood2010 happened and wrote about it here. The devastation and loss is huge. Maybe we’ll have to organise work parties to go out to [...]