While the flood waters are receding downtown and across middle Tennessee, families and businesses alike are in the cleanup process.
This story has come at a time when the national media are concentrated elsewhere, given the attempted terrorist attack in New York and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is now reaching the shores of Louisiana.
This has not stopped some members of the national media, though. Keith Olbermann had this to say about the flooding of Nashville in a recent segment of his show, “Countdown.”
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Nashville has also been featured on the front page of USA Today with an incredible story about how not only citizens got involved in the relief effort, but also inmates.
Homemade videos were posted on YouTube within hours of the flooding. This video in particular has received the most attention, and for good reason.
One of the most inspiring posts came from an unlikely source, though.
Dairy King During May Flood (Photo credit: Whitney Jarreld)
The following story came from a Nashville Predators hockey team blogging site. Patton Fuqua is one of writers for Section303.com, one of the main news outlets for Predators fans. During hockey season fans visit the site to read game recaps, signing news, rumors and anything else Nashville Predators. However, on Wednesday morning, hockey took a back seat.
Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website.
What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey.
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.
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.
We are Nashville. And that statement has never meant more.
This showed when over 250 people showed up in less than an hour at Metro Center on Monday night to stack sand bags. It showed when a volunteer tried to help a homeless woman, only to discover that the woman without a home was helping a family whose home had washed away. It showed when Hands On Nashville asked for volunteers, and spots filled up in minutes. It also showed when schools, churches and shelters opened their doors to families and their pets.
Lipscomb University teamed up with the American Red Cross to set up a shelter. A Lipscomb graduate’s article on the subject was featured in the New York Times on Tuesday. For that story, click here.
The city of Nashville has undoubtedly banded together to show support for their city, and more importantly, one another.
For other stories from Lumination Network about the flood, click here.
Photos courtesy of Lumination Network and Whitney Jarreld.
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