Worse Than Anyone Could Have Imagined
The heavy rains began again early Sunday morning. We all woke to booming thunder and bright lightning and we settled in for another day of foul weather. I turned on the television and watched live flood coverage around the city. It wasn’t looking good at all.
The best information on flooding actually came from Twitter. All over Nashville, people were taking pictures and video and posting them on the site, along with information on road conditions. The pictures were alarming. Everything was flooding, even places that I wouldn’t have expected. Downtown, Riverfront Park had become Riverfilled Park. On 12 South, a trendy area where Hubs and I had just had a date night, waves of water covered the street and lapped at the buildings. Someone reported that the ritzy Belle Meade Country Club was under water and asked if a shelter had opened in Nashville’s wealthiest neighborhood. I couldn’t help but imagine women appearing there with pockets full of Harry Winston jewelry and armloads of furs, while aproned maids bustled around pouring tea for everyone.
Bellevue, my neighborhood, was one of the hardest-hit areas. We live in an area known as the Harpeth River Valley, which means lots of low-lying land and a river that winds its way through our neighborhoods and around our businesses. It is lush and green and beautiful. It is also, I learned, a horrible place to be when it floods. As I tuned in to live coverage of a Bellevue man clinging to a tree across raging waters while rescuers tried futilely to get a rope to him, everything suddenly went dark.
“Oh no!” I shouted. Somehow, I knew the power was going to be out for a long time to come.
I was never worried for my own safety; we live on the bottom half of an enormous hill that borders the valley, and were higher up than most of our neighbors. At its closest point, the river was a mile or so away from our house. But I had hundreds of friends and acquaintances who lived close by the Harpeth or one of the many streams shooting off from it, and I was deeply worried about them. And once the power went out, we were totally cut off from civilization. My cell phone died within a few hours and I had no way of recharging it. Hubs left for work and my stepdaughters went with him. The kids and I were on our own.
We stayed in all day and I lit the rooms with candles and lanterns while the rain continued to pound down on our house. It finally abated at sundown. My husband didn’t get home until 2 am, and said he had barely made it back into Bellevue. Every road into the area was covered with water and just as he was about to give up and sleep on the side of the road, one road briefly opened at 1:30 am. He got up early the next morning to return to work before the traffic got too bad. The 20-minute trip took him five hours.
Monday dawned bright and sunny. The power was still out and we learned from neighbors that the entire power substation for Bellevue was underwater. Actually, much of Bellevue was under water. I made a trip to Publix, the only business in the area that had a generator and remained open, and this was just beyond the parking lot.
Another major road out of Bellevue.
The Publix management was amazing- They really deserve a separate post on this blog. Everyone who could get there by boat or car had gathered to exchange information. Residents from subdivisions just minutes from where I live all had been evacuated by boat. In one nearby community that’s popular with senior citizens, three people had died. Down the road, a couple had tried to get to church Sunday morning and had died in their car. The stories were incredible and I’ll tell some of them in future posts.
Our power came back on late Monday night, three days earlier than we had expected. I have friends nearby, though, who are still without power. We are all without Internet or phone service and I have no idea what has happened to AT&T, the service on which so many of us rely. I have seen Comcast trucks all over the area making repairs. I have yet to see a single AT&T truck or receive any information from the company on what’s going on. I heard a rumor that it might be two weeks before we get phone service and Internet restored.
Because we don’t have phone service, we all have to use our cell phones, which is overloading the towers. Most of my calls don’t go through. It is incredibly frustrating because we all are having a difficult time getting in touch with neighbors to find out what’s needed and who needs help. Some of our major roads are still underwater, others have been deemed unsafe and traffic is at a crawl.
HOWEVER, I do know some important details.
One of the families I know that was hardest hit was part of Punky’s playgroup, which met weekly for four years. My friend’s husband has been updating his Facebook page. Their home was just one level, so when it was flooded, they lost everything. In addition, some of their things have been stolen out of their front yard, and they just learned that their insurance will not cover flood damage. This is a hardworking family of modest means and every time I think of them, I get tears in my eyes.
Other families here have learned that their insurance will not cover personal items. These are families that are probably a lot like yours- They have worked hard for what they have and most of those we know ourselves and through friends didn’t have a lot of extra spending money to begin with. Imagine losing everything inside your home and basically having to start over on your own dime. I can’t even comprehend what they’re going through.
I feel so inadequate as I try to think of how to help. I’m not good with construction and I can’t give each family as much money as I’d like- Literally hundreds of families around here have lost their homes.
This is what many neighborhoods around here look like now.
But I had an idea.
GIFT CARDS.
I’ve received a number of gift cards from PR companies and business over the last year (and fully disclosed all of them, of course! LOL) and when I began hunting around the house and calling in to find out their amounts, I had a total of $200 in gift cards from places like Whole Foods, VISA, Macy’s, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Walmart. I am going to be taking those gift cards to my playgroup friend. They aren’t much on their own, but each one is at least enough for a family lunch or dinner, or new clothing or kitchen supplies.
I am going to be contacting every business that has given me a gift card in the past and ask for any gift cards they’d like to donate to these families. And I’m asking you now to search around and if you have an unused gift card, consider donating it to one of these families that has lost everything. It is a really easy way to help, don’t you think? I got so excited when I realized how far the gift cards I had lying around would actually go to help my friends And we have most of the major businesses around here- Publix, Kroger, Harris Teeter, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and all the major restaurants. Think of how much a simple gift card could mean to a family that has lost everything.
E-mail me at suburban.turmoil@yahoo.com with the kind of gift card you’d like to donate so that I can make sure we have the business in our area– and I’ll let you know where to send it. And please spread the word about this, if you don’t mind. I have a feeling that together, we could make a huge difference in a very simple, easy way.
If you would like to simply donate money, my church is organizing volunteer efforts here in Bellevue every single day and has set up a Flood Relief Fund here. Be sure and designate that you want your money to go to the Flood Relief Fund.
Or you can donate directly to my playgroup friend’s family through her husband’s Paypal page here. He is a musician and this is ordinarily his online “tip jar.” 🙂
In addition, if you live in the are and you’d like to help, here’s how you can do it. Cross Point Church will be organizing volunteers at the old Circuit City (now Cross Point’s Bellevue campus) on Hwy 70 on the following dates:
Thursday, May 6th
Friday, May 7th
Saturday, May 8th
Saturday, May 15th
Saturday, May 22nd
Saturday, May 29th
Meet at the Bellevue Campus (7669 Hwy. 70 South, Nashville, 37221) from 9 AM-4 PM. They will send you where you’re needed.
What we’re doing now.
I will let you all know more information as I get it. Thank you all so much for your help.
Photos courtesy of me and Cross Point Community Church.
