Apologies for a minor blog hiatus (see: LA for work, wedding in 17 days, house guest through Saturday). I hate to go more than a few days without posting, and as my home, Tennessee, and all of its people have been weighing heavily on my mind since Saturday, I’d thought I’d share with you this inspirational piece of writing, reblogged from Section 303.
image via Nashville Needs More Metaphors
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“If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.
The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.
Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.
But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.
Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.
Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.
And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.
Because we are Nashville.”
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How can you help? Click Here to volunteer with Hands On Nashville. The organization is coordinating volunteer aid efforts for the mayor’s office. Be sure and tell them if you have:
1. Resources you’re willing to volunteer.
2. Material you can donate.
3. Special skills.
What a terrible mess. I’m also surprised at how little the story has been covered and was wondering whether it was just my perception because I’m abroad. But the mainstream media is like a murder of crows. They all swoop, simultaneously, over the brightest, shiniest story at the exclusion of everything else.
I am SHOCKED at how little attention this story has gotten.
Interesting. I have been following this flood b/c my little sister graduates from Vandy next week. But when I called her about the damage and possible disruption – she was really blase. It seems that the flooding was very localized? I’m not sure, but while some people were seriously disrupted, and property damaged – the flood didn’t impact the whole city. Maybe THAT’s why this hasn’t had more attention paid to it?
I am also shocked at the current coverage.
I’m glad you raised awareness. I can’t believe how late I found out about it.
The exact same thing happened in Iowa two years ago. There was next to zero coverage on the news and there definitely weren’t any celebrity telethons raising money to help them out. But…they managed. On their own. They fixed what was broken. They rebuilt what was damaged. Nashville will too!
Such a tragegy. Such a good piece of writing to sum everything up. Thank you for posting!
I was just there in February, it had been 25 years since I been before and I had forgotten how fantastic it is. I stayed at the Opryland Hotel which is now unbelievably underwater. It makes me sad.