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It’s with such a heavy heart that I write this blog post. Our area has seen record flooding. Catastrophic damage. Many of my out-of-town friends/family/clients have sent messages to ask how we are. Mike, the boys, the cat & I are all fine. Our house had some water leak in the sunroom (where I shoot the baby pics), and while it was about 10-12 gallons we mopped up, it’s nothing. We’ve been blessed. Others in our county & area, not so much.

This blog post is really for those of you who aren’t in our area, who may not know how bad things are. If you’re in our area, you’re either living thru it, or have seen it on the news. Outside of our area, I understand, isn’t getting much national news coverage…

The  last I heard on the news is that the death toll is up to 28 people, and there may be more. A woman just called into the talk radio station I was listening to, asking for prayers for her neighbors as the Coffee County rescue squad was trying to rescue some folks who were on top of a roof of their house, and that their house was literally being swept away by the river. Can you imagine?

Saturday I hostessed a table at a luncheon at church honoring our widows & older ladies. It was just great. Saturday night, we drove to town between the storms to return a movie we rented, but found that we couldn’t get there our normal way, due to flooding in Lebanon. These two pictures were taken with my BlackBerry.

At the far left, you can see the blue dumpster that used to sit behind the Old Neighborhood Grill has been slammed up against the bridge.

This one is taken via the Hatton Cam on Lebanon’s Town Square.
(The Square flooded Saturday… flood waters receeded… then flooded again Sunday.)

The next 5 pictures are what we encountered trying to pick up a pizza to take to church Sunday afternoon. It only got worse for some folks after that!

What few photos I snapped in Lebanon don’t really do justice to the damage that has occurred in Tennessee. For pictures that the national media haven’t shown as much, check out NewsChannel5.com, WSMV Channel4’s website, WKRN.com, as well as WLAC Talk Radio – they even have a picture of a COW stranded on top of a house.

Our kiddos & Mike were out of school Monday, and I just couldn’t get much work done because my mind was on those hurting. You know? You want to reach out to those in need and don’t know what to do… we aren’t in a position to do as much monetarily as we’d like to be able to, but by george, I’ve got stuff to share! Since I’d pulled the rest of the boys summer clothes out of storage last week, (but still hadn’t finished putting them all away!), we tore in to that job as a family, and came up with several sacks of clothing to donate. Mike & I are going to clean out our closets. I have housewares on the list next.  I know the immediate need is for water/food, but we’ve got “stuff” ready for when it’s needed.

Sunday I was glued to the TV, watching history being made. We watched footage of a house floating by Interstate 24, while cars sat covered in floodwaters. Yesterday, this video of a rock quarry filling up was just amazing to watch-the water is so powerful!

Later in the day yesterday, reports of how badly the Opryland area had been flooded came in… just devastating! While it’s not as bad as loss of life or homes, the economic impact of our local tourist attractions damage will be long-felt. It’s not just Opryland. It’s hurt Vandy Children’s Hospital, Historic Downtown Nashville, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Bridgestone Arena, the Opryhouse, Riverfront Park, and so many other places in so many other towns in our area.

We have such great memories of so many places in our Middle Tennessee area, but really all love the Opryland Hotel. Our boys always want to know when we can go back… As soon as they are back open for business, we’ll have to go see how they’ve recovered, but that will probably be a long while. You can see from Stephen Lee’s pictures on Facebook how badly damaged it is. I can only imagine how much those folks who’ve had damage to their homes must be facing. Here are a few pictures showing you the damage at Opryland…

I’ve lived in Middle Tennessee most of my life. To say that no one who’s lived here has ever seen anything like this is an understatement. At first, folks were referring to the magnitude of the flooding as a “100 year flood“. I heard this morning that the Army Corps of Engineers is saying now that this was more like a 1000 year flood. Wow. There will be many, many more things said about the flooding here, and there are so many unknowns right now. But I’ll tell you one thing that I do know: we will be ok. We’re Americans. Southerners. Tennesseans. People who pull together. The stories of neighbors helping unknown neighbors have made my heart sing. People helping people is what it’s all about. We will take care of each other. It’s who we are.

Ok, so in the mean time, do you want to help, too? First and foremost: PRAY. Phillipians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Here are some other ways to help. You can visit the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s website to donate money. Even a $5 donation helps! For donating your time/services, visit Hands On Nashville’s website to register. I know a group from our church will be visiting the churches of Christ Disaster Relief to start packing up supplies to be given to those in need. (When I just now visited the Disaster Relief website, it looks like they’ve been so busy helping  they haven’t even added the Floods to their News!) I know Disaster Relief takes donations, too.

While listening to the talk radio Community Foundation Tel-a-thon today, small business owners were calling in to pledge support, offering a percentage of their sales to the Flood Relief effort. It was amazing how many called in! So, Yet To Be Photography is going to do the same.

For every regular session booked for May, we’re donating HALF of the session fee and 30% of portrait sales to Flood Relief.

Also, in the coming weeks, we’ll probably have some families who have lost their treasured family portraits. If you know of such a family who have lost their family portraits in the flood, pass along to them that we’ll do their session for free & help them make new keepsakes with new family portraits.

I pray all of you will stay safe & dry. And call me if you need anything. Really.
With much Love,
~Heather