May Showers

The rains fell and the flooding began here in Tennessee this weekend. In Nashville Interstates 24 and 40 were closed both ways. We watched as a portable from a local school floated past stranded vehicles and some semi trucks on interstate 24 near Bell road. Surreal, devestating, overwhelming, just a few words expressed and personally felt by many Tennesseans this weekend and in the coming weeks as the Cumberland and Red Rivers have overflowed thier banks.
Southwest has cancelled flights into Nashville, the Opryland Hotel has been evacuated due to 12 inches of water on the bottom floor, many businesses have lost inventory and the interstates are parking lots. The rain fell and the waters climbed quickly before many were able to prepare for it. Emergency shelters have been set up everywhere and the hotels are full.
Locally in Clarksville, (we are about 45 minutes north of Nashville) we have several of our streets closed also. Down along Riverside Drive yesterday many businesses were loading up moving trucks with their equipment as they raced to beat the flood waters ever edging closer to their livelihood. The water is just under the bridge going up toward Boot Hill and the parking lot behind the old Two Rivers Mall has flooding. While we were amused watching the big trucks drive through it yesterday, we were consistantly reminded of the loss and devestation this overflowing of the river was causing homes and businesses. This morning we were told that this road was closed completely as the water has now crossed the road and is affecting the businesses on the opposite side of the street.
Along Madison Street there are several places where the water flows steadily across the roads. Down from the Kroger on Madison Street there were water rescue boats pulling people off of roof tops.  Over by the Dunbar Cave area, the water is across the road as the ducks swim happily across the streets. We were told of damage out toward Montgomery Central High school.  In the Northwest/New Providence area, there is flooding from ponds and creeks.  In the next county over, there were two lives lost as folks tried to merely get to their home.

Personally, we have flooding of our own. The only damage so far is loss of mulch.  We have a ditch between our home and our neighbors which has crested and overflowed its banks into both yards and through our flower beds. The huge ditch behind our whole subdivision is over its banks and has eeked into our backyard past our fence and under the kids club house. Some of this has slightly receeded, although we still have water moving slowly toward the ditch. We are so blessed and thankful that it is not affecting our home. We saw some water entering some neighbors garages and they were able to get everything up off the floor and so far its not into their living space yet.