For a brief period of time in the mid-80s, for about two years tops, high waters were a good thing.  Thank you, Michael Jackson.  High waters any other time in history, however, are a bad thing.  A very bad thing.

Thus was the case for us in Middle Tennessee this past weekend.

It started raining here late Friday night, and it really didn’t stop completely until late Sunday night.  Some areas of Nashville got 18+ inches, which, by the way, is about 25% of our yearly average rainfall.

I live a little south of Nashville, and I think our totals were more around a foot.  We are fortunate that our house is on a hill.  We had zero water damage.  Others, though, were not so fortunate.  The really bad news is that most people in these parts do not have flood insurance.

On Sunday afternoon, despite the media’s warnings to stay indoors, we decided to try to drive around a bit to see what the landscape looked like.  Yeah, we’re like that sometimes.  Pirates, ya’ know.

We had a hard time even getting out of our neighborhood, and after about fifteen minutes of cruising very slowly around in rushing water, we decided that it would be fool-hardy, even for pirates to try to go any farther, and we came home.

I was able to snap a few photos on our little jaunt though, and I thought I’d share them with you.  Keep in mind that what you’re seeing here is mild in comparison to what was happening in other surrounding areas.

This was the main street that runs past our neighborhood…

The streets…

Front yards…

Back yards…

This little video clip shows an area that is usually a dry ditch…

So far, we’ve had 28 deaths in the area, and apparently there are many people who are unaccounted for right now.  Homes are under water.  Even though in the outlying areas, the waters have receded in our sunny, 80 degree weather, in Nashville the water is continuing to rise because they are having to drain area dams so that they will not break.  One of my favorite tourist spots, The Opryland Hotel has eight to ten feet of water in some of their atrium areas…

It’s a real disaster here.  Period.

Please pray for all of those affected by these floods.  If you feel inclined to help those in need, you can contact the Red Cross.