It's Raining, It's Pouring

The worst weekend for moving ever.

For those of you who don't keep up with the news, Nashville flooded this weekend. I've never seen anything like it. It didn't just rain, it poured. For about 3o hours straight. Initially the rain was a little inconvenient, seeing as I was trying very unsucessfully to move houses on Saturday and keep all of my belongings dry (mattresses, etc.). But then it got scary. We couldn't get from one house to the other because of river streams flooding across all the roads. My sweet friends, Ashley and Micah drove in from Smyrna (normally just a 20 minute trip down 1-24) to help me move, and when they left at 3:30 they got stranded on 1-24 for 3 hours because the highway flooded. People died sitting in their cars on the highway. Luckily, Ashley and Micah were ok, but it took them 5.5 hours to get home that night. And Sunday it got even worse. The rain didn't let up.

If you could have seen the Tennessee State Fairgrounds behind my house, you'd have been shocked. Instead of land, there was probably a 4 foot lake. And more water was rushing into it from nowhere in particular. My basement flooded and destroyed a few things, but I am so, so lucky. My U Haul also got stuck in the mud, but it could have been so much worse.

Sunday early afternoon, my boyfriend Will and I were walking around the Opryland Hotel, enjoying the gorgeous flowers and waterfalls. By late Sunday afternoon the entire hotel was evacuated and all the guests were forced to abandon their cars and luggage. Now the hotel is under 8-10 feet of water. Check out this video:

This is a photo of Will and I at about noon on Sunday right in front of the Cascades' waterfall at the Opryland, but as you saw in the video, all of this is now under water:

The people of Nashville are really great, though. Everyone seems to be pitching in and helping as much as they can. This flood has caused BILLIONS of dollars in damage and it is going to take a long time before we get back to normal. Today, the government is telling us that they are close to needing to shut off our water supply. We don't have enough and we are quickly running out. I can't believe this is real. I read this really great article about some of the issues and why we need help: http://www.section303.com/we-are-nashville-4366

One thing is for sure. When you see this kind of devastation...and you go relatively unscathed...it really puts things into perspective. The stuff that got destroyed in my basement is just stuff. And even if my most favorite thing had gotten destroyed, it still would have been just a "thing." I spoke with a woman this morning who lives down the street from me and her entire house is under water. Just down the street from me. Did I mention that? And everything is destroyed. They lost everything. She's upbeat and grateful 'cause she's alive. I love that.

So, if you think about it, try to keep Nashville in your prayers. We need them!