Surviving the Nashville Flood!

Well, you just never know what a new day will bring you!  (um…like a flood!)

Saturday was a wonderful day, and we spent the whole time outside working on our shed.

Cy got the lights added to the front of the shed and all the electrical wires run inside the shed.  We were SO excited with how it was coming along.  

It started raining a little, so we called it a day.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner, and were relaxing after a long day’s work.  After dinner, it got cloudier, and I could hear thunder rumbling outside.   I love the sound of thunder, so I went outside to enjoy it, and I took a video of our cute little shed to share on Instagram.  You can hear the thunder in the background of that video. (Shared at the bottom of this post.)

 

 

Little did I know that four hours later, complete chaos would ensue!

It was about 11:00 pm, and I was getting ready to go to bed.  I went to tell Adam goodnight, and he was looking out the front windows of our house.  “Mom!  Look at this water in our front yard!  It’s crazy!”

Because our house sits down off the road, it is common for us to get water in our front yard, so I did not expect to see what I saw!  It was a flowing river in our front yard!  I yelled for Cy to come take a look, and at the same time, Jonathan and his friend Parker come over from the studio suite in the back of the house and yelled, “Mom, look at the driveway! Our cars are gonna flood!” 

It happened that quickly.

It was wild.  

Jonathan, his friend, Parker, and Adam quickly jumped in the cars and drove them up to the corner of the street where they wouldn’t flood or get washed away.  (Unfortunately, some of our neighbors’ cars did get flooded.)

Within minutes, it was water as far as the eye could see.  From our deck, you would step down into water, and it was moving quickly (even though it looks still in the photos.). The water was constantly moving and flowing across across our yard, taking most of our chairs and belongings with it. 

Our sweet little shed got water in it.  It broke my heart to see the photo below. 

The water was climbing quickly in our front yard too, and it was making it up close to our porch.  If it made it that high, it would have started to flow into our home through the front door.  You can see in the picture below our front porch brick pavers.  The water was getting close to reaching the top of our porch.

At that point, Cy was trying to decide if we should leave the house for safety.  Sania had already gone to bed and woke up to the chaos. Of course, the younger kids were freaking out, and Sania started crying.  It was something we had never experienced before and something we didn’t expect.   She didn’t know what was going on.  I tried to keep everyone calm, but it was hard.   I was freaking out too.

Water began entering under our garage doors, and I began running in and out of the garage grabbing family heirlooms and keepsakes that I didn’t want to ruin.  I had no clue how long it would continue to rain or if the water would continue to rise.

Jonathan took off on foot down the street, running through the streaming water from neighbor to neighbor checking on them.  Some of the neighbors didn’t even know what was going on!  It happened that quickly.  Jonathan saw one woman upstairs through her kitchen window, and Jonathan knocked on her door to warn her.  The water was already up to her porch and she didn’t even realize it!   There was also an elderly couple in a split foyer home that Jonathan checked on.  He said they were sitting upstairs because the bottom floor was already flooded.  :(

Back at our house, we realized the rain was starting to slow down, and we decided to wait just a few minutes longer to see if the flood water would continue to rise.  

Thankfully, it began to recede.  Within about 15 minutes, you could start to see some of our yard again.  

Our nerves started to ease a little, but there was rain in the forecast for the rest of the night until 6:00 am, and there were some more heavy storms coming through.  

We stayed up until about 3:00 am, after all the main storms had passed, and when we realized we were in the clear, we went to sleep. 

The next morning, we assessed the damage, and we are grateful that it wasn’t too much.  Our crawl space is full of water and will need to be pumped out, and we had a lot of debris that got washed up at the creek line that had to be cleaned up.  

Our shed floor was very dirty, but we got it cleaned up yesterday, and now we are letting it dry out. 

Cy took two truck loads of debris to the local dump, and I cleaned up the garage. 

It was a crazy experience for sure, but we are truly thankful that it wasn’t worse.  This flood came on quickly, and our neighbor who lived here during the 2010 Nashville flood said that the water rose just as high this past Saturday night as it did over a decade ago.  He said the flood of 2010 rose slowly over a period of a few days, and they were able to prepare for it.  This flood was completely unexpected and has caused a ton of damage in our area.

I believe that 4 lives were lost and many homes destroyed.  You can read more about the flood HERE on our local news. 

It has been almost a year exactly to when the devastating tornadoes ripped through Nashville right at the onset of Covid.  Whew, what a year!

These moments always force us to once again remember what matters most in life, and it is most certainly NOT THINGS.  

As devastating as it would have been for our home to have flooded, it wouldn’t matter one bit to me as long as my family were safe and sound.  

And this flood reminded me once again of how unstable this world is.  How things can change in a heartbeat. 

But not my Savior.  Jesus is my ONE CONSTANT.  His love and His promises never change.  He brings an indescribable peace to my heart in times like these.

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand!

I pray that wherever you may be or whatever your week may hold for you, that you too know that Peace.

Here are the videos from my Instagram that night…it’s crazy!