I flew home yesterday to find, my home, Nashville, in the midst of a natural disaster. The city had been “blessed” with 13″ of rain in one day. This Biblical style rainfall had been proceeded by several days of steady rain mixed with thunderstorms. This is not a good combination.
Tennessee is a state defined by it’s rivers. All of our major cities nestle into the bosom of at least one large river. Nashville happens to be embraced by the curves of the Cumberland River.
Normally, the Cumberland winds along in the slow sensous manner one would expect from a Southern belle. But, like a true Southern lady, when too much is put upon her, she will rise up. And with so much rain in such a short period she did just that. She rose.
She rose and she flowed through the subdivisions near her banks. Then, like a tourist to our fair city, she rose up and flowed first through the Opryland Hotel, and then through the Opryhouse. Finally, seeking more excitement, she rose again and flowed through downtown. Like most tourists, she stopped around 2nd ave. But she did pay a quick visit to the floor of the Bridgestone Arena floor, and did a tour of LP field.
I suppose 200yrs ago the river flooding would be something of a mixed blessing because the gifts of fertile soil she she carried to the farmland might balance out the havoc wrought by the high waters. For better or worse, as a city, we are not in a position to find use in the gifts the flood may have given us, and the devestation it caused has left citizens without homes, jobs, and (potentially) clean drinking water.
I have always felt the greatest sympathy for the citizens of New Orleans who suffered through Katrina. But, I am only now beginning to understand even one-eighth of what it must have been like to live through such an event.
