9th May, 2010 – Mother’s Day

It’s Monday’s Day in the United States and I’m enjoying the hugs and kisses of my two children as they present me with their homemade cards. We’re in our new house of not even a year in the southern U.S. city of Franklin, Tennessee – part of the Nashville Metropolitan Area – where we moved to from upstate New York less than two years ago.

I’m reflecting on my odyssey – how I, as a British-born Chinese woman living in London up to 10 years ago, ended up in this southern part of the U.S.

And I’m counting my blessings as, one week ago, we survived the floods in Nashville; the worse flooding in Tennessee history and, quite possibly, the costliest non hurricane related disaster in the U.S.

Er… Where’s Nashville?

Nashville you ask, where’s that? Well, you may have heard of the city, if you’re a music fan.

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee, located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. It’s a major southern hub and famous for its higher education, hospitals, and music and publishing industries. Its nickname is “Music City, USA”.

Over 1.5 million people live in the 13-county Nashville Metropolitan Area. I live in Franklin, a city that’s part of the Nashville Metropolitan Area and approximately 20 miles south of downtown Nashville.

1st and 2nd May, 2010 – The Worst Flooding in Tennessee History

It’s taken me several days to process my feelings, absorb my emotions and consider how 48 hours can change people’s lives.

The events of 1st and 2nd May, 2010 are etched indelibly on my mind, but you might not have heard about the seriousness of the flooding in my new home town.

The disaster in Nashville got pushed far down the list of newsworthy items as the national and cable television networks here chose to focus on the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving people in Nashville and its surrounds angry about the lack of coverage on what was for thousands of people and the local economy a catastrophic situation.

Check out this photo montage that somebody posted on YouTube and you’ll see the extent of the flooding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjaQoOdJvI

I’d hazard a guess you were probably absorbed (and still are) with the UK General Elections and didn’t even notice any news items about flooding from a place so far away from your neighbourhood, and that’s if there were any news items that were shown.

My family survived the flooding, but many were not so lucky. Many lost their lives – 21 people as of the 6th May – and many more lost their homes and businesses. To date, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA – the federal body responsible for the coordination of disaster responses – has received 17,000 applications for aid.

The Army Core of Engineers referred to the record rainfall from the past weekend as a 1,000 year event. A 1,000 year rain event has a 0.1 per cent chance, or a 1 in 1,000 chance, of happening every year.

On Saturday, 1st May a slow moving storm system with humid air from the Gulf of Mexico sat over our area resulting in multiple tornado warnings, thunder and lightening storms, and torrential rain.

It rained through the day and through the next day, dumping a third of the area’s annual total rainfall on the already over-saturated ground – over 13 inches in Nashville and 15 inches in Franklin. The bottom line was that too much rain fell in too short a time period.

The water swelled in all the major rivers and contributories, and taxed the draining system far beyond capacity causing massive flash floods that spilled over highways, roads, and built-up business areas and residential subdivisions that were not in the 100-year flood plain.

Numerous residences were evacuated due to the rapidly rising water, and many water rescues took place. People watched in horror and pain as their homes, or businesses were flooded. Everything they had, destroyed in a mere matter of minutes, or hours.

Emergency shelters are now filled to capacity and many areas have a drinking water conservation emergency, or have had no power for a week due to the flooding of water treatment plants and energy sub-stations. Many schools and businesses remain closed.

The water damage in downtown Nashville is immense with historical landmarks, tourist attractions, and commercial sectors sitting in up to 10 feet of water. I haven’t even visited some of these landmarks, or buildings yet – such as the Grand Ole Opry, an American icon of country music – and I feel an immeasurable wave of sadness.

Gov. Phil Bredesen has asked President Obama to declare 52 of Tennessee’s 95 Counties federal disaster areas. Because many of the homes flooded were outside the 100-year flood plain, people simply didn’t have flood insurance. And now they have lost everything – house, car, possessions – all but the clothes in which they stand in.

We were in the thick of the flooding in my neighbourhood. I live on a circle with one main connecting road out of my subdivision. Within hours on Saturday evening a portion of that road overran with water, and the green fields and drainage system that back onto the local river, the Harpeth River, from our circle flooded and became a raging flowing torrent of water on what was once solid land just a short time before.

We were trapped in our circle unable to get out by car. You could only wade through the flood water on the road out at chest level, or kayak out – both highly dangerous.

We watched hopelessly as the rains continued through the night and through Sunday, and the waters spilled over the white picket fences onto the residential roads. Hour-by-hour, water rose up driveways and then into garages and first floors. There were boat evacuations of people from several of the closest roads to our circle and part of our circle that backs onto the fields.

In eight years of living in upstate New York, I was used to large snow falls, and the odd Nor’easter or two, but tornadoes and floods were beyond my range of comprehension and experience, and I was scared – more scared than I’ve ever been in my life.

It was surreal as each hour we came out to check on how far the water had risen and how long before it would come to our house.

We met neighbours we hadn’t seen before at the edge of the rising waters; we were tied together by this unprecedented event, trying to stay calm and even sharing survivor humour – how much food did we have, and could we all pool it?

Faced with the threat of losing our home, great waves of panic washed over me. What do we save? What do we move up to the second floor? When do we start to move the things? Where are our important documents? How much bottled water do we have?

Normally, I don’t subscribe to the “Life Stinks” outlook of life. Life is life and these things happen, but when it does happen to you, your friends and community, it’s hard not to feel that life stinks – we’re only human. When I look at the devastation to the homes around me, now the waters have receded, I’m beyond sad. It’s tragic and that’s just how I feel.

People always say, “It’s just things; it’s people that matter.” I agree that people trump possessions any day, but there’s grief in the loss of irreplaceable things such photographs.

The heavy rains stopped on Sunday around 5.00 PM. And this turn of events was the good fortune that saved our house. The water had risen to five houses away. We breathed a massive sigh of relief as the flood water held, and then started to recede in the wee hours.

Monday was the day of reckoning for people as hour-by-hour, the water receded enough in our neighbourhood to get through by foot and eventually car, and they could assess the damage to their properties.

Over the past week, walking around and finding a stray shoe, or toy strewn on the grass, seeing people haul their ruined possessions out of their homes to dry in their front yards, drying out their garages with big industrial fans, ripping up carpets, or floor boards and throwing them out into industrial skips breaks my heart.

And while, at the time when it stopped raining, I danced for joy to be spared the flood, I feel a sense of something other now – I can’t say whether it’s predominantly a wave of upset, guilt, unease, lethargy – about my good fortune when others have not been so spared. Is this survivor guilt?

Now, as I look around the parts of the neighbourhood that were not touched by the water, it looks like absolutely nothing has happened; as normal as any other sunny day in May. But the photos people took and the visible signs of damage tell a different story.

No more so than one road away when, in the middle of the flood, two houses were completely destroyed by a devastating fire leaving barely a shell standing for one of the homes, and the roof and upper floor blown out for the other. And other homes around them suffered the impact of the explosion.

What can I say to these families? There’s nothing of consequence to make the situation feel better. Perhaps, at extreme times, we as a community go through a collective suffering and the only way we can make sense of things is to take action.

In Gov. Phil Bredesen’s press release of 4th May, he states, “I commend Tennesseans on the resiliency of their communities and their unshakable compassion to lend a helping hand. We face many obstacles and challenges in the days to come, but I am reassured to see that we are united in our efforts to help those in need.”

And help has already been mobilized by neighbours helping neighbours to clean up their properties. I see the resilience and compassion in the people who turned up for several “Neighbours in need” cookouts to feed the people who are cleaning their houses and to raise money for the families affected. During these events, people brought donations and food, cooked and served the food, and went around the neighbourhood with offers to help.

Each state has its own moniker and Nashville’s is “The Volunteer State” and, indeed, I’ve seen countless acts of heroism and selfless acts of assistance this week.

A week on and parts of Nashville still remain submerged. Mayor Karl Dean estimates the flood damage to Nashville to easily exceed $1 billion, but everyone is focussed on getting the city back up and working. And we won’t know if we’ll find more bodies until all the flood waters have receded, so the death toll is almost certain to rise.

To be honest, up until now, I felt indifferent to my new home, indifferent to Nashville, reluctant as I was to move from upstate New York and say goodbye to my good friends and networks I’d built up.

I was afraid of the stereotypes of southern culture with my liberal and diverse world-view, and non-Christian background. And quite honestly, I’ve found it to be a difficult cultural transition.

But, this single event has made me feel more connected to the place than anything else in the past two years. It matters to me that this happened in my own backyard. My husband says it succinctly, that this place is our home now.

What can you do?

You’re thinking, you don’t live in Nashville, Tennessee, so what can you do?

I’m asking for your help. Please spread the word about the Nashville flood disaster on your social networking sites.

And please consider a donation, however small, to one of the local funds set up, from the Salvation Army to Middle Tennessee Red Cross, to help the people affected. http://nashvillest.com/2010/05/03/so-nashville-is-flooded-how-can-i-help/

Final thoughts

We’ve seen so many disasters lately, from the earthquakes in Haiti to the earthquakes in Chile, and life goes on. We sleep, go to work, pay the bills, feed our children, and deal with our stresses, but please, I challenge you, don’t get compassion fatigue and ignore the plight of the people in those desperate situations.

Think about your good fortune and imagine what I’ve described happening in your neighbourhood, and what would you do?

Perhaps, you were affected by the deadly floods that swept parts of the UK in 2007 and how hard that was for the people and communities involved, so you may have experienced many of the feeling I’ve gone through.

One last thought: I challenge you to care because, no matter how far away, it’s your world and we’re all connected somehow, as this British-born Chinese woman takes a break from her odyssey and stays put for a while.

Share Your Views

Questions, comments, or viewpoints? Share your thoughts below, or email me direct at: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

SUSAN S. CHEUNG
Photographs courtesy of Michael Lewis