Flood Recovery

As most of you may have heard the weekend that Casey and I got back from the cruise, Tennessee recorded one of it's biggest floods in history. This wasn't just a little water folks, it was a LOT! 15-22 inches fell in a 24 hour period! For 72 hours straight, our local stations covered the situation. It caught so many by surprise and the water rose so fast, that 22 have been confirmed dead and several are missing. Sadly, several of my and Casey good friends lost everything. It was a widespread flood. Downtown Nashville was flooded up to 2nd Avenue. The Grand Ol' Opry house flooded, along with the Opryland Hotel and Opry Mills mall. The Hard Rock Cafe and The Wildhorse Saloon flooded too. That list is just the beginning of a HUGE list of flooded business and personal homes. Buildings were floating down the interstate, and all 3 major interstates in Nashville were closed, because they were under water. We got very little national news coverage. Check out this video that really tells the whole story.

Nashville is just about 50 miles north of us. There was flooding as far south as Rutherford County, which is only about 30 miles north of us. We were very lucky in Shelbyville. We didn't have nearly as much rain down south. Casey and I weren't sure what roads would be passable by the time we got back to Tennessee, so we cut our trip short and started driving right after we got off the boat. We were lucky. We had perfect weather most of the way home. We only drove in about 40 minutes of rain total. By the time we got home, the rain had stopped. It was only then that we learned how bad things were up in Nashville and out in west Tennessee. It broke my heart to watch the animal rescues. So many agencies pitched in to help rescue the ones left behind. Check out the ASPCA blog to read about the rescue effort and to see a great slide show. Folks, we still need a lot of help. Please give to your organization of choice, if you can. WE ARE NASHVILLE!!