The Great Flood of 2010

I've never been one to worry about the weather, one way or the other.  Predictions of bad weather rarely cause me any concern, because so often the predictions are wrong.  When the local meteorologists predict a heavy snowfall, we get no snow.  When they predict light snow, we get heavy snow.  And so it goes.

Friday afternoon, I began hearing dire predictions of heavy, heavy rainfall coming our way.  We were told to expect a weekend of thunderstorms, rain and high winds, maybe even a tornado or two.  I chided my mom when she expressed concern about the weather.  How bad can a lot of rain be, I thought.  Real bad, it turns out.

In two days, Saturday and Sunday, the middle Tennessee area got almost 14 inches of rain.  That's 1/4 of the total rainfall we normally receive in a year.  And it came in two days!  At times, it rained hard.  At other times, it rained steadily.  Either way, it just kept raining for two days straight. 

On Sunday morning, early, the high winds arrived.  Jude and I woke up around 7 a.m. to thunder, lightning and gale force winds.  We could see our neighbor's trees out our bedroom windows, bending toward our house, closer than they had ever been before.  Fortunately, John Patrick slept through it all.  As the rain continued throughout the day, we began seeing reports on television of flooding in Nashville and surrounding areas.  Then, sadly, we began hearing about those whose lives had been lost in the flood. 

Today, although the rains had stopped and the sun was out, the Cumberland River continued to rise.  It isn't expected to crest until late tonight, at more than 50 feet above its normal level.  Throughout the day, water inched across First Avenue, filling the basements of businesses and offices.  By this afternoon, the water had reached Second Avenue.  The Opryland Hotel and the Opry House flooded, as well.  The news got worse and worse.

It wasn't Katrina and this isn't New Orleans, not by a long shot.  That was a natural disaster of epic proportions, the worst of my lifetime.  Still, I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, the people of middle Tennesse got just a very small taste of what the people of New Orleans experienced in Katrina's aftermath.