The Thousand Year Flood, Day 4

It's Tuesday, and we are finally able to get out of our neighborhood, and even into Nashville. Highway 70 is still closed, but I-40 is open. I didn't attempt to go into Nashville because many secondary roads are still closed, and I didn't have a real need. I did drive around Kingston Springs and see the damages here.

I was amazed to find road crews from a private contractor already trying to make Kingston Springs Rd passable in front of the high school.

This is where several homes were completely destroyed after being swept off their foundations by raging flood waters. You can see the huge sheets of asphalt that were torn off the road surface.

There was little left of these train tracks over the Harpeth River. Normally, the river is way below the tracks, and only a few feet deep at this point.

Back in my neighborhood...

This is the bottom of the hill in our neighborhood, which was impassable yesterday.

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RC Flood, Kingston Springs, Weather

The Thousand Year Flood, Day 2

It's Sunday, and the rain is still coming down.

I started watching the weather/news on TV, and checking Facebook updates. The flooding was all over middle Tennessee, and it was serious. Our elementary school was under 5 feet of water, and a teacher who had gone to retrieve things from her classroom had to be rescued from the roof by boat. I-25 southeast of downtown had become a raging river itself. A portable classroom from Lighthouse Christian academy was floating down the interstate until it hit a stranded semi and fell to pieces. The beautiful Opryland Hotel and Convention Center was under 10 feet of water. Interstate 40 both east and west of Kingston Springs was closed because it was under water. Highway 70 was also closed. Kingston Springs was now an island, with no way in or out. We were no longer able to get out of our neighborhood. I see on Facebook that several homes across the street from our Middle School and High School have been swept away, in a river that never existed before. Videos of the homes being forced off their foundations and floating away to later be broken apart into kindling. Families losing everything they own. I read posts on Facebook about people being trapped in their homes waiting for rescue. Or a family that escaped their flooded home but spent days waiting for rescue from their van parked on the ridge above their home. Its all surreal.

A little while later, we lost our internet and cable connections, and cell service became too weak to get a call in or out. Text messages were still going through.

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RC Flood, Kingston Springs, Weather

The Thousand Year Flood, Day 1

When I woke up this morning, Kelly had already left to play golf. I thought he was kind of nuts, since it was raining, but he and his friends played anyway. I was waiting for him to come home so that we could go grocery shopping together. The refrigerator, freezer, and pantry were all but empty since I had been out of town so much and he was working such long hours.

By the time he got home, it was raining harder, but didn't seem too bad. We left via our normal route, only to discover that water was rushing across the street from what was normally a tiny creek. And just beyond that was a downed tree across the road. So we turned around and went the other way, out Bald Eagle instead of Campbell Ridge. At the bottom of the hill, another small creek was at least a foot deep over the road, blocking all traffic. Yikes! But we still had one more route we could try and took Lonesome Pine. While the creeks along the road were high, they were not across the roads. We managed to make it into Bellevue, only to discover the electricity was out in the businesses on Hwy 70 all the way up to the Publix store which was our destination. Fortunately, the Publix had electricity, and we were able to do our shopping. Which was a real blessing, seeing as what transpired over the next few hours and days.

Coming home, we took the Lonesome Pine route again, without issue. We unloaded all the groceries and put them away, then went back out to take some photos of the weather, still not realizing just how desperate the situation would become. The water had receeded back into the creek banks at the bottom of the hill, but had damaged the roadway. Water was still rushing across Whippoorwill near the downed tree. We took some photos and returned home.

I started watching the weather/news on TV, and checking Facebook updates. The flooding was all over middle Tennessee, and it was serious. And it was still raining.

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RC Flood, Kingston Springs, Weather