I’m sure most of you are aware of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, many of the other contributors have done great jobs detailing the devastating ramifications of the spill. Frankly, I was gonna do the same, however, over the weekend in my hometown of Nashville, TN, the city faced one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the South.
This truly came as a shock and it is moments like these where one can notice how communities come together in times of need. In order to describe just a sliver of the events, I will chronicle the events of my day before analyzing the big picture.
Saturday, May 2nd, 2010.
4:30 AM – storming, storming, storming.
5:15 AM – branches are falling, however none of the power lines have fallen
8:15 AM – I’m getting into my car, soaking wet, and my creek has overflown to the point, where my car is slipping off the will.
1:00 PM – 4 inches of rain; unable to drive.
By 1:45 PM – My small town within Nashville was not only under flash flood warning, but also tornado warning.
2:15 PM – Home alone, because my father is out of town until Saturday night (relevant later) and I’m being forced to hid in my basement. Little do I realize, my basement is flooding, the electricity is off and on. And I have barely any signal on my phone and no Wi-Fi.
By 6:00 PM – 13 inches had fallen. This flooded out major highways, interstates, the airport, downtown Nashville, small towns, and major roads went under.
6:22 PM – My father’s flight came into town. I had no way of picking him up, because everything was under standing water. Scared out of my mind.
Finally by 10:00 PM – My father rented a car and got home.
REPEAT SUNDAY
By 9:00 AM – The rain had gotten so bad and never let up until Monday morning. It was so bad that my town had a curfew on driving and being out, with violation resulting in arrest.
Now here I am, Tuesday morning, sun is shining and everything is back to normal. Or so you think? Things have forever changed. The conclusions: 16 inches of rain in 48 hours, 10 deaths in TN, and infinite damage.
I suppose my objective in writing about this incident stems from the fact that it is not world news, however just bearing witness to this occurrence is the biggest thing in my world. I hope none of you can relate, although, I do hope that many of you can empathize.
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