>Just a Few of Thousands of Amazing Stories from the Flood

>I told you that I had heard some amazing stories of bravery and heroism during the recent flood- and that’s saying something, since communication continues to be primarily through word of mouth in this part of Nashville.

Both of the stories I’m about to tell you take place in the neighborhood down the road from mine. It was untouched by flood damage but, like ours, everyone in it was without power and trapped on what became known as “Bellevue Island,” without access to the outside world. I’m sure there are other equally amazing stories that I haven’t even discovered yet, and that I’ll find out about them later when school resumes and life gets back to being somewhat normal. As it stands, these are two that have stood out so far.

First, at the height of the storm, a woman in the subdivision went into labor. A neighbor saw what was going on and tried to drive the woman and her husband to the hospital, but wound up driving in circles; there was absolutely no way out of our part of Bellevue. They went back home and began sending e-mails and text messages on their phones to try and locate a doctor. A high-risk OB was found a few miles away- the trouble was, his neighborhood was separated from theirs by a vast expanse of floodwater.

Despite this, he waded through the waist-deep water to the other side (a feat in itself- people died in this flood attempting to do the very same thing), then hitched a ride to the woman’s house. There, he delivered the baby by flashlight, with help from a group of neighbors.

AWESOME!

The mother and baby are doing fine.

That same day, a neighbor of some friends of ours in that subdivision had made a very difficult trip to Publix as the flood waters rose to get more formula for her baby. The baby had serious allergies to certain foods and needed a particular kind of formula, and in the panic and confusion of the day (the water was rising quickly in the parking lot outside Publix) and due to the fact that it was dark in Publix, the woman bought the wrong formula. When she got home, she gave it to her child, who went into anaphylactic shock.

Can you even imagine the horror she must have felt that moment?

She ran outside, shouting for help, and my friends came out to help her. A pediatric resident in the neighborhood had just managed to get home from the hospital, saw what was happening down the street, and came over. Another neighbor brought out a breathing machine she had on hand for her asthmatic child, and our friends hooked it up to an extension cord, powered by an outlet they had bought that operated with a car’s power. They got the breathing machine going, the resident got on the one working cell phone on the street with his attending, and together, using medication various ones of them had on hand, they revived the child and essentially saved his life.

Unbelievable!

My husband has heard even more amazing stories. Yesterday, he interviewed a woman who was trapped in her river home, which was surrounded on all sides by the Cumberland River. The home caught fire while she was there and she ran outside to the water and called 9-1-1.

“Don’t get in the water and try to swim!” they told her. The undertow will pull you down. Wet a blanket, cover yourself with it and stay where you are. The house might explode, so be prepared.”

Just a few feet away from the home, she tried to think of what to do. “Do I want to burn or drown?” she asked herself. “Burn or drown? Burn or drown?” At that moment, a Good Samaritan pulled up out of nowhere on a jet ski. She hopped aboard and just as they got about 30 yards away from her home, the fire reached the cars in her garage and the house exploded. Had the man shown up just one minute later, she would almost certainly have died.

The fact is, I have never seen people here pull together like they have in the aftermath of this flooding. Everyone I know is helping, whether they’re pulling out drywall, organizing clothing drives, or caring for the children of people affected by the flood. Large sections of Nashville now look like a war zone, but to me, it’s never been more beautiful here and I’ve never been more proud to call this place home.

I have to thank you all, too, for your generosity. After I posted yesterday and asked any of you who wanted to help to perhaps send your unused gift cards for the people around here who’ve lost everything, within the two hours that I had Internet access at the YMCA, you all had already pledged to send more than a thousand dollars in gift cards, as well as cash donations, toys, and toiletries. You. Are. AMAZING. And I can promise you that your cards and donations all will go to very good use. I’m compiling a list now of families around here who are in the most need and it is a long one. I’m going to make sure your cards get to the families who need them most.

Just to give you an idea, there are literally hundreds of families very much like yours, I’m guessing, whose homes are being gutted right now because of the flood. The majority of them didn’t have flood insurance (who’d have ever thought they’d need it? This was a 500 year flood!) and those who did will only receive money for structural repairs. Grants from FEMA will help some, but the amount they’ll get will be nowhere near what they’ll need to get back to normal. That said, I can’t think of a gift card they couldn’t use right now. Restaurant gift cards can provide a meal for a family. Best Buy gift cards could help them replace cell phones and computers. Department store cards could be used toward clothing they’ve lost. And on and on and on.

If you’d like to donate an unused gift card, contact me at suburban.turmoil@yahoo.com and I’ll tell you where to send it. If you’d like to donate money, I would personally recommend my church’s flood relief fund simply because I know that all of the money you contribute will go directly to helping people who need it. That’s important to me when I give money, and I’m assuming it’s important to you, too.

And if you live in the area, I hope you’ll consider donating your Saturday to helping flood victims begin the process of rebuilding. I will be at the Bellevue campus of Cross Point Church (formerly the Circuit City on Hwy 70) tomorrow between 9 and 4, helping to coordinate groups of volunteers to get to work in the neighborhoods that need them the most. Please consider stopping by and helping if you can.