Dirkmonster

The epic Nashville flood - One year later

How symbolic it is that we have a gray and rainy day one year after the greatest flood the Nashville, TN area's known history.

A year later, Nashville is remembering the deadly torrent of water and marking the progress of the recovery.

We were in the middle of it on May 1-2, 2010 and I was able to capture some images.  Here is a repost of what I saw a year ago:

Video of the May 1 flash flood near our home in Brentwood, TN:

 

Lyn escaped from the flash flood but had to abandon her car which was a total loss:

http://www.dirkmonster.com/2010/05/escape-flood-waters.html

The Tennessee Volunteer Army clean-up:

http://www.dirkmonster.com/2010/05/tennessee-volunteer-army.html

Tornadoes threaten Middle Tennessee every year and they can wreak every bit as much havoc.  But I will never regard heavy rain in the same way.  Water is perhaps the most destructive force of nature.

 

 

Get fit in winter with the "Carol Birdsong" treadmill workout

When winter weather delivers a glancing blow to Middle Tennessee, my kids love to get a recorded call from Carol Birdsong saying that "Williamson County Schools will be closed".  Carol has become somewhat of a cult hero in our community, with a fan page on Facebook and a song that is all but a snow dance intended to evoke a call from Carol.

Carol rang our phone 4 times this week and the kids got a second winter break out of the deal.

Parents of elementary school students will tell you they like hearing from Carol Birdsong a great deal less than their children do.  It means an unavoidable interruption of the natural rhythm of the family unit. So, we all are left to make the best of Carol Birdsong's snow days.

My coping strategy this week was to take the kids with me to the YMCA where they could enjoy the playroom and gym while I got in a workout.  My friend had the same idea and as the week dragged on, we found ourselves on the treadmill at the Y again and again.  We discussed how ironic it is that the Republicans that govern the reddest county in America are so liberal in handing out snow days.

Be that as it may, I came down with a case of Carol Birdsong fever.  The only cure was to sweat it out on the treadmill and in the process I devised a treadmill workout I like to call "The Birdsong".  Here's how it works:

A chief advantage of the Birdsong is that it battles the mind numbing boredom of the treadmill by requiring constant adjustment of the machine's settings.  It is a 60 minute workout that doesn't give faint hearted school bus drivers any more courage to brave the roads, but on the other hand when you're done it's an hour closer to springtime.

1. Start the treadmill in manual mode as you'll have to make decisions under pressure, just as Carol does.
2. Adjust the speed to a comfortable walking pace.  I use 4.0 MPH.
3. Now I'm walking but not getting anywhere, kind of like letting the machine answer Birdsong's call.
4. I watch the "Elapsed Time" readout on the treadmill control panel.  At precisely 1 minute into the workout, I adjust the incline control to 1.
5. I keep walking, staying in the moment, resisting the temptation to wonder when my child's education will resume.  At two minutes in, I raise the incline to 2.
6. At three minutes, I raise the incline to 3.  Having alignment between the time and the incline helps not to confuse my simple mind, which has been stunted by two many snow days when I was a kid.
7. I continue raising the incline one level as each minute ends, until the end of the 5th minute when the incline is at level (think think think!) ah yes, level 5.
8. At the beginning of the 6th minute I decrease the incline level to 4.  I'm headed back down.
9. At the beginning of the 7th minute, I decrease to incline level 3 and so on.  The numbers are slightly more confusing to me since they don't match at this stage, but they'll always add up to 10 which is conveniently the number of fingers I have to count on.
10. At the beginning the 10th minute, I am back down to incline level 0.
11. This 10 minute period is the warm-up, a prayer really for a warm up outside.  At the beginning of the eleventh minute, I go back up to incline level 1.
12. I continue as before, increasing the incline one notch at the beginning of every minute. However, the Birdsong requires me to fly higher this time.  At the beginning of the sixteenth minute I increase to incline level 6.
13. Minute by minute I work my way up to the twentieth minute when I spend 60 seconds in the Death Zone: Incline level 10.  Sometimes I go ahead and hold on to the handles in order to avoid an embarrassing fall like Icarus did, no doubt on a snow day in Greece long ago.
14. At the beginning of the twenty-first minute, I drop back down to level 9.  Now on the way back down, the math adds up to twenty but I can't take off my running shoes to count on my fingers and toes.  Channeling my inner "Little Engine that Could" helps as I huff "I think I can, I think I can."
15. All the way back down to level zero and I'm at 30 minutes: Half way through The Birdsong Workout.
16. Over the next twenty minutes I go all the way back up to 10 and all the way back down to zero.  Somewhere, I imagine, Carol is booting up the robo-call machine again.
17. With only 10 minutes to go, I warm down with a trip up to 5 and back down.
18. At sixty minutes I'm done and feel like I could drive the damn school bus myself.

Let's say school is opening two hours late.  In that case, the "Half-Birdsong" is an option in which I do 30 minutes and only do three sets up to level 5.

School was back in session today.  I still went to the Y, but didn't have what it took to pull a Birdsong. But you can bet the next time Carol comes a' calling, I'll put on my snow shoes and make tracks to the Y. Thanks for all you do Carol, to keep us informed and healthy.

 

Tennessee volunteers cleaning up after flooding disaster

Before today I thought "The Volunteer State" was just a nickname.  I know it's the real deal now.  It's a spirit that's in action across neighborhoods and homes all over the state.  Today I saw it at work in the River Plantation neighborhood in Bellevue.

In this area, the volunteers seemed especially well coordinated.  I checked in at Crosspoint Church's command center where I was given a location to join up with others on the team.

Out in River Plantation, the water is gone and the demolition and cleanup is underway.  Hundreds, maybe more than a thousand volunteers are working in homes of people they've never met.  It's just there to be done and it's too much for anyone to handle on their own.  So strangers, an army of them, are working and working and working. 

There is a different group of volunteers serving the volunteers.  About every 15 minutes, a group comes by pulling coolers of bottled water and other drinks.  They also have homemade sandwiches and snack food.  They are cheerfully nourishing strangers helping strangers.

My mind cannot comprehend the devastation and loss.  There are thousands of victims of this flood that  lost everything.  At least one drowned right in this area week ago.  There is a profound sadness that stands in contrast to this bright sunny day.

The routine approach seems to be to haul 90% of the contents of the home outside and onto a trash pile. Then the flooring, carpet and padding is ripped out and piled up outside as well.  Then the outlet plates come off the walls.  Finally the water logged wall boards are torn out and piled up outside. Home after home with the contents, floor covering and walls in trash piles.

I worked inside the home of a woman in her 80's (many of River Plantation's residents are older folks).  Mrs. Wilma was trapped in her home with her husband last weekend as the flood waters rose so quickly that there was no escape for them.  She told me that just as the water was up to her neck, volunteers came by in a boat and rescued them.  This is what the flood caused:

Volunteers are taking it all outside to create this:

We found a few things that could be saved like some silver she said her mother gave to her.

Personally, I've never seen devastation like this.  But when loss beyond comprehension comes, so do the people in the spirit of love thy neighbor.  The Volunteer State is the real deal.

Nashville flood is a watershed event for social media in Tennessee

The epic flooding disaster in middle Tennessee has also brought on massive social media attention. 

Traditional media was prepared to leverage all the channels.  Very early on Saturday, local TV stations began utilizing uStream to broadcast live from locations where their satellite trucks could not reach.  Local TV also took advantage of Facebook accounts where viewers shared information posted on news anchors' pages.  Stations also had in place uploading utilities to their web sites that took in tens of thousands of files - many of which were re-broadcast on TV.  NewsChannel5.com received over 8 million page views on Sunday.

In many ways, social networking is the new "traditional media". On Twitter, hashtags such as #othersituation2010 and #thesituation2010 aggregated real time tweets from around the area. A Youtube search produces a play list customizable to your location whereas you might wait hours to hear it to air on TV.

As the rain stopped and the sunshine returned Monday morning, Google Trends highlighted the magnitude of the attention the Tennessee flood was getting online.  Mashable posted about it.  Thousands of pictures began showing up on Flickr.

In middle Tennessee this weekend, the mail never even arrived Saturday and a wet newspaper contained yesterday's news.  In the middle, TV coverage chased the storm using social networking tools.  But if you were still able to maintain an Internet connection, the web was out front.

Downtown Nashville flooding pictures via Flickr

Some of the best still photos of the downtown Nashville area as the Cumberland river is over 10 feet above flood stage - May 3, 2010.

Sun is welcome in Tennessee after Great Flood of 2010

The disaster is by no means over, even if the rain has thankfully stopped.  The sun finally shines bright over Middle Tennessee this morning.

Thousands of people are still trapped in flooded homes waiting to be rescued or for the water to recede.  The Cumberland river is about 25 feet over its banks and has flooded parts of downtown Nashville.  The Cumberland has also flooded the Opryland Hotel - one of the biggest hotels in the country.  Guests were evacuated late last night to a nearby high school. 

The Harpeth river, which feeds into the Cumberland, has flooded places like Bellevue where we used to live.  Further west the Harpeth flooded Kingston Springs and Pegram.  In that area, Interstate 40 is closed in both directions for about 40 miles.  Hundreds of motorists spent yesterday and last night trapped on the Interstate.

At least 11 people died in this flood.  Many of those were trapped in cars and drowned.  Over 15 inches of rain fell in about a 24 hour period Saturday and Sunday. 

Don't ever do this in a flood

I will never drive through flood waters again.  I learned this lesson yesterday afternoon, as the flood disaster in Middle Tennessee burst upon us.

All the routes were blocked off between me and home and the final path was over a bridge over Owl Creek.  Owl Creek was already running over the bridge.  So, with my 7 year old and 5 year old in the back of my SUV, I gunned it.  For a couple terrifying seconds, I felt the truck rock and start to go sideways.  Then the tires were back on the ground and we were on the other side.  My friend snapped a picture as we crossed.

I've been watching news coverage ever since and seen what very easily could have happened to us.  Several people have died in their cars under similar circumstances.  I'm embarrassed at my impulsive stupidity.  So I only hope this helps someone else to "turn around and don't drown".

Ross reports from the Brentwood flood

Ross has been watching NewsChannel 5's coverage of the massive flood of 2010 all weekend.  The rain finally let up a bit, so we ventured out and he filed this report from Concord Pass in Brentwood, TN:

Middle Tennessee braces for day 2 of dangerous storms

When church services are canceled in the buckle of the Bible Belt, you know it's bad.  That's the case this morning as public officials and pastors agreed, it's just too dangerous to be out in Williamson County, TN.  Here's what Pastor Stan Mitchell, of Gracepointe Church in hard hit Franklin TN announced early this morning:

Stay home and take care of yourselves this morning.  Of course we're
always loath to cancel church services but obviously that is the
prudent thing to do today.  After speaking to the Sheriff's and Police
Departments this morning we feel we have no choice but to make sure
our people stay off the roads and out of harm's way.

Hopefully, this next wave of storms will not produce any more
significant damage or, perish the thought, deaths.  To aid that hope,
keep the weather man on in your house through the morning and be
smart.

Just as this went out, a severe storm cell passed through Franklin and Brentwood.  I took some video as it passed south of our house:

This frontal system is stalled over Tennessee for the rest of the day.  So even as yesterday's shocking damage and loss of life is dealt with, more danger is on the horizon.

Lyn's escape from the flood waters

Lyn was attempting to get home this afternoon as flash flood waters started crossing the roads in all directions.  So quickly, there was no escape. Finally, the water swept her large sedan off Concord Rd. in Brentwood, TN and into the ditch.  The car stalled out, all the power went out.  She could not roll down the window but was able to get the door open and bail out of the car into the road.  A friend's car was right there and she jumped in and was able to escape.

The flood waters receded in the last couple hours and we were able to go salvage her belongings from the car.  Here are the pictures:

 

At the time this happened, the water was up to her knees.

 

We are grateful the only thing we have to deal with is property damage.  Sadly, a motorist drown on Interstate 24 in Nashville this afternoon after being trapped in a car.