Nashlantis!

What is being called the May Day Flood in Middle Tennessee has killed at least five and washed out most of Nashville and the surrounding counties. CNN has footage of school buildings floating, and streaming fast, down Interstate 24. The destruction all over the area is devastating. No word yet from Mom and Dad about our house.

I'm getting my truly local news from Facebook—whose houses are okay, whose are damaged, and whose are gone. It's insane.

You know that when the churches and the gay bars are closed, there is some serious floodmageddon.

Friend of the Blog and photographer Carolyn Hall posted some photos around our neighborhood. Major roads are still underwater, and she reported emergency BOATS racing past her at one point.

Richland Creek, not far from my parents.

More Richland Creek.

Harding Road at Lynnwood Boulevard (again my parents' neighborhood).
Carolyn reported a car was submerged just up Lynnwood (to the right)

This is White Bridge Road at Charlotte,
where Richland Creek goes "under" Charlotte.

Also via Carolyn is this video from her friend of a branch of creek about 100 yards from my parents house. "Creek" no so much anymore.



More "user-submitted" video clips of flooding at CNN's iReport here.

Downtown should be okay. According to Nashville Historian David Ewing on the Facebook page "the Nashville I Wish I Knew", after the Great Christmas Day Flood of 1926 (rare photos are posted), Tennessee build levees and Percy Priest Dam to control the Cumberland River.

Also in the national news: Nashville friend Dabney was one of the visitors evacuated in Times Square, just feet from her hotel actually, for several hours last night while police defused a major bomb in an SUV.

Update: Just talked to Mom. Basement flooded (my comic books!) and pipes burst. Neighbors underwater. Over 42,000 people, including my brother and his family, without power (they are a bit stir crazy with a toddler and no coffee, or elevator). All Interstates and schools are closed. My nephew reports that at his high school, the water is up past the cross bar of the goal posts on the football field. That's eight feet. Cars are still strewn all over town, underwater. Mostly in my parents' part of town.

Mother said "the rain is suppose to stop once it stops." (Which I understand.) However, everything is saturated so there is no where for the water to go other than eventually down the rivers. It is supposed to be sunny all week. The field will be wet on Saturday, and with all the water and the hot sun, Nashville is going to be humid if not downright steamy.

Shilpa better pack the shellac for her hair.

Another Update: Wow. more than 25% the annual rainfall in two days. More than 12" in 24 hours. Everything is wiped out. Wet wet wet.

Via Nephew Bradley:


Another Update: From John Moss in Nashville: "If the rainfall in Nashville had been snow, it would be 12.5 feet! Two days in, the wettest May ever in Nashville, They are evacuating MetroCenter as one of the levees appears to be breaking. Over 600 water rescues today, following 100's yesterday in Nashville alone."

He also posted this pic from down the street from my parents':

"This will give you an idea of the destruction: this was a car I saw that had been washed
off the road on Harding Place in front of the Belle Meade indoor tennis center.
I saw several cars that had been washed off of Harding Road
along the railroad tracks between Hillwood & Belle Meade."

And from Mary McGee: