Hello everyone. I've been away from Daily Kos for over 2 weeks, because I have been away from most everything for 2 weeks. Our home was flooded on Sunday morning (May 2nd) not too long after sunrise.
There may have already been dozens or even hundreds of diaries on this subject. But, I still wanted to tell my story for those who wanted to read/hear it.
And just because I needed to tell it.
The Red Cross was wonderful. They provided shelter at David Lipscomb College. Hundreds of cots in row after row on a tarp on the gym floor. There were shelters closer to our home, but this was the only one (at the time) that was taking pets. We have 2 cats & one dog. They were sad, confused, scared & wet...but they made it out ok with us.
After 2 nights at the Red Cross shelter, we were able to get back into our neighborhood. This is what we saw.
I can't figure out how to post the pic without busting the margin.
That's an area of our house where the living room & dinning room meet. As you can see there is stuff from all over the house that moved around during the flood. The water line was approxiamately 4-5 feet. Everything below that was soaking wet & had mud all over it.
In 2 rooms we had shelves that started at the five foot line & went to the celiing. A lot of our books/CD/DVD's were on those shelves, so they were saved. We also managed to save some clothing.
But furniture/appliances/carpet/kitchen cabinets...etc. are all lost to the mud and water.
We didn't have flood insurance, because our insurance agent told us there was no need for it, since we weren't on a flood plain. He even showed us a map. Our back yard is deep and long & slopes away from the house. Beyond our back yard is a big field that someone else owns & they keep it cut & baled in the summer. Beyond that is a wooded area, and just beyond that is the river. And that's the river that got us.
So, we are waiting to hear from FEMA on whether or not we will have enough money to rebuild. I'm hoping for a low interest loan.
Thanks to volunteers from the community, most notably Hands On Nashville, we were able to finish the necessary demolition in four days. This consisted of knocking out dry wall, pulling carpet and removing all fixtures including our sinks and tubs. It was a momumental task and we could not have done it without the help of these amazing people.
In addition to this, there were others who drove up and down the streets of our neighborhood offering food, water, sunscreen and many other things for everyone. It truly touched us to see how many people cared about what had happened in our city and while we will never know (some)of their names, we will be eternally grateful to them.
Special thanks to the Jewish Community Center, St. Henry's Catholic Church, and too many Protestant & non-denominational churches to name. They provided shelter, clothing, food, water & so many other services during the worst of it.
Thanks to all the volunteers from the GREAT Community Organization Hands on Nashville.
Here's a link where you can see a lot of videos of the flood.
Here's a link where you can see almost 150 pictures