The photos of the Opryland Hotel are amazing. I can't imagine what a loss that will be - that complex is GINORMOUS! The financial losses will be tremendous.

Having absolutely loved Nashville when I visited, this whole thing makes me sad.

Me too.

Here's my best explanation:

So everywhere is getting 12-18" but that includes areas that are parking lots, covered by buildings, etc. In other words, for every square inch of rain fall there is not one square inch of ground for it to soak into. Even if the rain did land in a dirt/soil areas those can not accomadate that much water in every square inch.

Therefore, you get the run-off effect. Initially the water will run into drainage ditches. However, drainage ditches are not designed to hold that amount of running water so they over flow. The water that makes its way into the ditch is dumped into small creeks. Same scenario with the creeks: they just aren't designed for that much water, so MORE overflow. The creeks dump into tributaries, the tributaries into the Cumberland. You get the idea. Just nowhere for all that run-off water to go. Also, rain that falls fast runs off more than slow steady rains. My firends said the rain was so hard and so fast that being in their houses on Saturday sounded like being in a car wash. All Day Long.

This is why the neighborhoods flooded first, on Saturday. It took 2 days for all the tributaries to dump into the Cumberland which crested last night. Thus, downtown and the Opry area (further down river from downtown) did not flood until yesterday.

Entire neighborhoods are under water and since those areas were never declared flood plains those homeowners did not have flood insurance.

Looks like there has been slightly more attention given to the situation on tonight's news, but the above poster who mentioned that more has been covered via Facebook is 100% correct.

Yeah it's serious. I was talking to friends and old classmates down there. They are the forgotten Katrina. My friends house is fine....but he can't get out of his neighborhood.

I'm assuming it's the same thing that happened in my city two years ago. The large amount of rain that fell in such a short time doesn't have anywhere to go because the ground is oversaturated. So it goes into the rivers, which then crest at extremely high levels, causing them to run over their banks and into the city.

Or, what Blondie93 said.

Flooding is horrible. Thoughts to the people of Nashville - this will take years to recover from.

Yes, much of that area is adjacent to the Cumberland River, which overflowed its banks. The Cumberland "collects'' water from many, many creeks (many of which also flooded). Plus, the amount of rain that fell was insane, AND since we had a very wet winter, the ground is fairly soaked.

It's pretty bad...we live in the next city just downstream of Nashville, so not only did we get all the rain they did, but all that floodwater, is flowing down the Cumberland to us!! Roads have been washed out, bridges covered, Riverside Dr., one of the main roads in town is COMPLETELY underwater!!

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Thanks to everyone for your concern. The amazing part about this disaster is how the people of Nashville have responded. Everyone is stepping up to volunteer and help neighbors and even strangers. There are already benefit concerts being held and t-shirts being sold for relief. One blogger thinks this is why we haven't gotten much national media coverage:

http://www.section303.com/we-are-nashville-4366

Right now we are facing a major water crisis. They are urging people to only use water to drink and cook - that's right - don't flush the toilet or do laundry. It will be interesting to see where we are in a few weeks when the water has completely receded.

Thanks for posting the link to the blog, Fleur de Lis. Hat's off to the blogger for such a well-put take on the lack of press.

That is exactly what we had to do for a week or two until they could get the main water treatment plant back on line after our city flooded two years ago. We set out big garbage cans under our downspouts and collected water to use for flushing the toilet, and even then only flushed when we had to. We showered about every other day and minimized our water for cooking. Actually, I think we had certain days we could shower - odd-numbered houses had these days and even-numbered houses had the other days. Obviously, people weren't to wash their cars or water their lawns or anything.

I think we also had to drink only bottled water for a few days. It's amazing what you can go without when you have to!

My son's school has a uniform, but periodically they have $1 out of uniform days (so the kids bring in $1 and get to dress down)- they just announced that next Tuesday is an out of uniform day and all the money collected will go toward Nashville relief-- and one parent (that has a daughter at Vandy) has offered to match whatever the kids raise.

Great video showcasing the depth of the destruction all over town and not just the landmarks. The creator used quotes from the We Are Nashville blog cited above.

I still am completely amazed that the National Media has all but ignored this story.

FWIW, I have seen a bunch of celebs tweeting about Nashville, and encouraging text donations to the Red Cross for the city.

but yeah, that flooding is unbelievable, and so little has been said about it.

I don't know where y'all get your news but I've been seeing lots of coverage on this every time I turn on the news, since Saturday or so. CNN has a huge special section on it even.

I'm currently a student in Nashville, and was on campus during the flooding! It was SCARY. My mom and I managed to drive out of the city okay on Monday, but that was north of Nashville... everywhere else got POUNDED. Driving away, it was just so scary to see all these buildings underwater, and with the Opry flooded, I swear, I cried so hard. :(

One of my good friends was trying to drive home to Atlanta and lost his van and everything in it. One of my lovely sisters has friends who lost their homes and all their things because of the flooding. It is *terrible* and it is absolutely appalling to me that the only news coverage this gets is when country music stars lose their stuff. THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE IN NASHVILLE.

*sigh*

I love Nashville so much. This is where I moved for school and it is one of the most beautiful and wonderful cities I have ever been in. It hurts to see it drowning like this and have NO ONE covering it.