Not much of a diary here. Just a quick rundown on happenings in Nashville and surrounding areas. I've included scenes from the local news and personal experience from the last 24 hours.
There are a couple of other diaries posted about this event. I encourage you to read those as well.
I've lived here for twenty years--and my wife for thirty--and we've never seen anything like this. I've seen flooding before; I remember a few times when the Cumberland River overflowed its banks. But this event is unprecedented not just in our memory, but in human history.
It began Saturday night, when dozens of cars on I-24 were suddenly swamped by swiftly moving rising water. Two people died before anyone really knew what was happening; they got out of their flooded car and tried to walk away, only to get swept away themselves. My wife was driving home from work that night; she told me there were a few times when water was moving across the highway so fast that she was turned sideways. It was such a harrowing experience, she didn't get much sleep that night.
We have a friend who lives in downtown Nashville. She woke up yesterday morning, looked out her window and saw water pouring over her driveway. Realizing she might soon be in trouble, she immediately went out into the driving rain and moved her car to the street. Then she went back inside, threw a few days' items into a suitcase, put her dog on the leash and got the heck out of there. When she opened her front door, she was faced with rushing water already up to her porch. Her car was gone; it still hasn't been located. This happened in a span of about five minutes. As she stepped into the torrent, her feet were immediately pulled out from under her. If not for her big German shepherd on its leash, she would have been swept away herself. She managed to get back to her feet, and her dog helped her to higher ground. Her house--bought just a few months ago--is now a total loss. And because she lived "so far" from the river, she didn't have flood insurance.
And that's that craziest thing about this flood event: many of the rapid inundations occurred in places where water is rarely seen in any kind of volume, even when it rains hard. Houses have been obliterated. People found themselves trapped on the roofs of their houses. One house was lifted off its foundation and moved into the middle of the street. Elsewhere, the water stacked nine cars against a building. Much of downtown Nashville is sitting in waist-deep water. Municipal buildings are flooded. An absolutely ginormous shopping mall is destroyed. It's practically impossible to drive anywhere in or near downtown right now; it's likely to remain this way until at least tomorrow.
Hate to post and run, but our neighbor has a boat and we're going to see if we can help.