Nashville, It Won't be Shaken by no Storm

I just found this song and I love it and find it very moving. It expresses the spirit of Nashville. It is fitting.

I live on high ground and was unharmed by the storm. Several large trees were downed in my neighborhood and several houses were badly damaged and some cars were destroyed from the falling trees but our neighborhood was not flooded. The only inconvenience I had from the storm was going without power for about twelve hours. I have sisters and other relatives who live here in Nashville and they all survived the storm without sustaining damage.

Over 13 inches of rain fell in two days. That is a lot of rain. To put it some perspective, the average annual rainfall for Nashville is 48 inches. The devastation has been massive. Thousands of people are left homeless. Hundreds of homes will have to be bulldozed. Regular homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage and most people whose homes were flooded will not have flood insurance. Areas flooded that have never been flooded before and in areas that are no where near a stream. Whole areas of town with hundreds of homes were flooded.

I am sure many small businesses that were barely hanging on simply won't reopen. Opryland Hotel, the big resort hotel and convention center here in town was flooded and will not reopen for at least six months. Opryland does about a quarter of the city's convention business and employs over a thousand people. No one yet knows how many people will be out of work because their place of employment will be closed. Many people not only lost all of their belongings in the flood but lost their job.

Every time you watch the local news or talk to people you hear more heart-breaking stories and stories of how people's lives have been effected by this disaster. You hear of churches that sustained major damage and businesses that were destroyed. I was at a meeting today and I talked to someone in the music business and they were telling me about a warehouse that serves the music industry. It flooded and Vince Gill lost several priceless guitars that were stored there. Tour buses and a lot of sound equipment and instruments were stored in the warehouse and it was all lost. One doesn't think about all the different sectors of business and society affected by this storm.

To see everything a family owns reduced to garbage is heart breaking. Everyone know some one who has been a victim of this storm.

Nashville has responded tremendously. Neighbor's pitched in and helped rescue neighbors during the flood. Boat owners went on rescue mission without any direction. People with chain saws have pitched in and cleared trees. Many churches have organized crews to help people clean up. There was no rioting or violence or looting. You have not heard of price gouging. People have been supportive and shown kindness to strangers. Friday night a TV telethon raised almost $2 Million and a radiothon raised half-a-million dollars. Volunteers have provided water and food and toiletries to people housed in temporary shelters. Various benefit concerts are planned and the Country Music Festival announced that half the proceeds from the CMF will go to flood relief this year. Taylor Swift donated $500,000 herself.

Despite the generosity of the Nashville people, the need is great. This city that I love is hurting. If you would like to donate to the relief effort, on the top of the sidebar I have a link to a site that offers a choice of charities collecting to help in the recovery effort.

Please keep Nashville in your prayers.

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