I remember sitting out on my balcony, 8 floors up, engaging in a particularly bad private occasional habit, watching as the rain came down. My wife had just left to go join a friend for her day before wedding activities, and I heard the sirens of an ambulance getting onto the interstate. I'm not one to overreact to much, but I had this really bad feeling in my stomach. I resisted the urge to call and make sure she was ok. Soon though, she called to remind me of some otherwise mundane thing, but I couldn't have been more thankful to hear her voice. The pit in my stomach though, was still present.
It was raining, not harder than I had ever seen, but it was coming down hard and steady. Ironically Jackson Browne's, Before the Deluge was playing on Pandora in my living room.
Now let the music keep our spirits high,
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal it's secrets by and by
By and by--
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky
I sat around with friends in the building Saturday afternoon. As neighbors tend to do, we hung out, laughed and had a few drinks. We talked about the storms, none of us realizing the devastation that awaited so many over the coming days. We watched the radar and seeing a short short break, decided to get out for something to eat. We walked down West End to a local Mexican establishment and then back home, like things were normal around us. Things though were starting to unravel, you could hear the panic in otherwise calm people. Traffic on the streets was dwindling. There were calls on television for everyone to stay home, the video of a building floating down an interstate, tweets and status updates about close calls. It rained through the night and then until 6 pm Sunday. By the time it was over I had seen boats floating down streets, a farmers market underwater, countless homes with only a roof top visible. Whole neighborhoods seemingly turned into a muddy, horrific version of Atlantis in a matter of hours. I have seen rain come down with equal if not greater force, but I have not seen it come down with the intensity and duration experienced here this past weekend. The intense power of nature that is radiantly beautiful one moment can be intensely destructive the next.
Over the next two days I would spend hours out on that balcony watching the rain come down. With the television muted and the music on I watched, through the glass door, as image after image flooded my mind, like the rains to the ground around me. Levees that were designed to withstand 100 year floods did not crumble, they held firm as water rushed over the tops of them. I'll say this again, I'm not one to over react to much. This was bad and getting much worse. Waters were rising, businesses and homes threatened, cars disappeared on an interstate that I'd driven on hundreds of times, vanishing into flood waters that wouldn't recede for 2 days. People began to try and locate friends and family, most did, some were not as fortunate.
I'm sure most of you have seen videos, pictures and read accounts of the devastation. Actually, given that we played third fiddle to the oil spill and attempted time square bombing, maybe you haven't. People here in Nashville, are and will be for some time, in need of help. This is the type of event that can take years to recover from. People are finding and burying loved ones, homes are destroyed, cars gone, possessions litter yards like a giant sprawling uncapped landfill. Businesses, small and large, are shut down and trying to figure how, if, and when they can re-open. While some of us are back at work, we think of friends and co-workers trying to dig their lives out of the mud that fills their homes. We ration our water while waiting for the water to recede below our drowning water treatment center.
I lived in Oklahoma City when the Murrah Building was bombed. I was there during the Storms of 1999 which demolished countless homes and plowed through miles of earth. Both times, there was a national outpouring of support. I have seen emotionally and physically decimated communities come together and heal, no doubt Nashville and the surrounding area will do the same. We will lift each other up and do all that we can. We cannot, however, do this alone. An economy, already struggling to rebound, is about to take a major hit. I have not read any official projections on damage estimates or revenue lost, but they could easily eclipse a billion dollars. As we start to rebuild this city we'll need your help. I'll say this again, we need your help.
So please, if you are in a position to and are inclined to help, please consider donating your time, your money or your prayers, we sure could use the help. I've listed some links to local organizations below. If you know of others, let me know and I'll add them.
Nashville Red Cross
Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee
The Salvation Army - Nashville Area
Hands on Nashville
