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Nashville Flood: Excruciating Hard Work Continues

By admin on May 5, 2010 in Family, Main

: Image by stephenyeargin via Flickr

We’re into Day 4 of the infamous Nashville 500 Year Flood and the real hard work begins.

No matter what disaster is going on you still have aging parents to take care of. Elder care continues and you have to put them first, before your house, job, tenants, etc.

But what amazes me the most in a disaster such as this one is the way people react. Some with magnificent resilience, others with pioneer courage and some as squeamish wimps. We’ve been coming in contact with all three types since Sunday.

Clean up is excruciating. I have never dealt with mud, water and the general messiness of this magnitude. We’re in the process of cleaning out three basements and it’s painful to have to throw away things that have a lot of sentimental value such as the tiny red Jeep Power Wheels my nephews received for Christmas, 1989 or my Mom’s Victorian chairs.

Some tenants have offered to help. A Vanderbilt graduate student from Columbia, South America told me he wanted to do what he could for us. Another Section 8 tenant reassured us they were okay and not to worry about them. Everything around them was flooded, except their house. I have a feeling she is worse off than she’s telling us, but I can’t get out to her area to check on her.

Another tenant, however, rang two of our phones off the hook because even though we got his basement pumped out in record time, he doesn’t like the smell. We suggested he move.

Meanwhile mother has back problems and I ‘m very worried. She doesn’t complain, but we need to get a doctor’s appointment for that next week and work it in somehow with Serve Pro, the AC man, and a paving company. We’re through with the gas company for now, I hope.

But we’re luckier than a lot of people who are still under water and that includes the Opryland Hotel. It will probably be months before it reopens. The Grand Ole Opry has moved because the Opry House is also flooded out.

“It a not a place, it’s a show,” The Grand Old Opry manager says.

He right and all we can do is make the best of it for now.