After the Flood

We are still in state of shock around here as we recover from the big flood. I use the term "we" loosely as we escaped the disaster with only a few tears and long days with no power. The rains began pouring on Saturday while we were in the midst of gathering with family to learn the gender of my brother's baby as well as our own (more on that later-we are having another boy, are thrilled, and will formally introduce him on the blog once we have his full name picked out!) By the time we arrived home from our busy, fun, soggy day-we were beat and ready for bed. We awoke the next morning to a power outage and more rain. We stayed close to home as many of the roads were already flooded. We prayed for families who were losing their homes right before our eyes, and we gathered around neighbors to keep up with the news. We had no cell phones in our house, were basically on an island as far as road closures, and really had no idea what was going on. We ventured out on foot every time there was a break in the rain. We do live along the Harpeth River (skipping rocks in it is one of our all-time favorite activities), but bear in mind that the river is really quite narrow, shallow, and is a good 7-8 minute walk from our house. They don't even sell flood insurance to homeowners in our neighborhood because we are considered a no-flood zone. Our wildest imaginations could not prepare us for what we would see that afternoon as we walked to the end of our street. The river had come all the way up and was flooding the homes that lie on the street perpendicular to ours. We watched and stood with our fellow neighbors as we saw many of people's possessions float downstream. People were rescued by neighbors from their second story windows where they had previously assumed they were safe. We stood, helpless, as people lost everything they owned. The waters never reached our home. The Lord protected us from a very dangerous situation, and we are so thankful. We continue to pray for those around us as we are amidst a disaster like I have never seen in person.

This is the path we walk along every night that takes us down to another path which runs along the river. Because of the trees and drop-off, you usually can't even view the river from this spot.
This is the street that runs perpendicular to us. This was taken around noon. It got much worse before it got better. I think this was the point where we went home and moved many of our belongings to the second floor.
The boys were dumbfounded. They thought nothing of all the water of course-they just thought that was fun. They did, however, sense the seriousness of the situation and were quite clingy/fussy the whole day.
The owner of the white BMW in the background had to move his car to higher ground as the waters rose literally before our eyes. An hour later we couldn't even make it this far down the street.
Heading out to see the river. I don't think they realized it would be at the bottom of our street!