The Girl in the Water

The Girl in the Water

As told to me tonight by my daughter, Sarah. 

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived near the water.  One day it starting raining.  It rained for a long time and all of the little girl's toys got washed away.  She was very sad because her crown got washed away too.  There was another little girl and she was kind of like a mermaid, but not a mermaid, but she had fins on her feet and she could swim really fast.  She heard about the little girl who lost her crown and decided to swim down to the bottom of the lake and bring it back for her.  She took a big basket too because there was money at the bottom of the lake and she thought the little girl who had lost all of her toys could use some money too.  And that's how they became friends.  The end.

A Flood Story

     I made a new friend last week.  She's one of the many people who live near me here in Bellevue that suffered massive damage to her home when the Harpeth River flooded on Sunday, May 2nd. She and her husband bought their first home in one of the newer subdivisions that is connected to Boone Trace, the neighborhood where Joel and I bought our first home. While I was doing what I could to help her salvage her Christmas Village collection, we found out that we have a lot in common, most notably that we are both married to attorneys who are crazy marathon runners (although her husband is deployed in Iraq right now which means that she is dealing with this clean-up effort without him here). The main divide between us seems to be that she lives in a place in Bellevue where the Harpeth River flooded her house and I live in a place where I watched all the flooding happen.  My story of surviving the flood is laughable compared to hers.  I endured it, she survived it.

   If you read my blog post from May 5th you may remember that between noon and 2pm on Sunday, May 2nd,  Joel and I realized that we were marooned in our neighborhood.  At about that same time, my new friend realized that she and her dogs were trapped on the second floor of her house with no way out.  She yelled for help for 15 or 20 minutes before she heard a man call back to her.  He told her to keep yelling because he was coming to get her. He swam to her house from two streets away.  He was wearing a life jacket and brought an extra one with him for her to wear.  The only way out of her house was from her second story window. She had to jump out into the swirling murky water of the Harpeth River and she had to leave everything behind, including her three dogs, because she was swimming out of her home. She said that swimming in the river and the pouring down rain wasn't too bad as long as they stayed in between two houses, but once they got away from the houses, out where the streets used to be, the current was incredibly strong and you just had to go with it as you made your way across or it would take you under.   When she finally made it to dry ground she stayed on the bank of the rising river repeatedly asking for someone to please please rescue her dogs.  After about an hour of waiting she saw a boat coming towards her with one of her sweet dogs standing in the front, his ears flapping in the wind.  When she was reunited with her dogs she said they started walking up the hill but they didn't really have any place to go, they were just walking up and away from the floodwaters. Her house was flooded and she didn't have her cell phone or her car or anything and even if she'd had those things, there was no way out of her neighborhood.  At some point she saw a man and woman standing outside their home watching all that was going on and she walked up to them and told them she needed some help.They took her and her dogs in for the night. I met them while I was there last week. They had walked down the hill from their house to see how she was doing.

       By the time I showed up to offer some help on Thursday afternoon, a tremendous amount of work had already been done deconstructing her house.  Water logged  floors and walls and doors and cabinets and furniture had been ripped out or removed and were piled in her front yard.  I spent some time bleaching door knobs and light switch covers and socket covers because an effort was being made to save anything that could be saved so that it can be put back into the house. Flood damage is expensive. Over the course of the afternoon I heard her say that her grandmother's rocker and a silver engraved frame that had her wedding photo in it were missing and she assumed that they had been washed away when the river flowed through her house.  She had found her great-grandmother's silver, although it was already rusting from being submerged in river water.  A few of us took it from her and went to work wiping the rust stains off and drying it out.  One or two pieces may be permanently damaged but we all agreed that she should keep those and maybe someday she could use them to tell her grandchildren about the The Great Flood of 2010.

Saving the Silver

    It was humbling to be there and see the amount of damage caused by the normally tame Harpeth River.  The Red Cross was there handing out supplies and neighbors were continually bringing food and water and making themselves useful wherever they could.  I heard many people say that those of us who live in Bellevue whose homes were spared are very lucky and I know that we are, but when such a large portion of your community is flooded it's hard to really feel lucky.  It's hard to just "feel" anything - I've got to do something and because I live right here, right in the middle of this natural disaster I have the opportunity to get out there and roll my sleeves up and get to work.  My challenge is to keep finding ways to do that.  What I would like to encourage you to do if you are reading this and don't live in the Nashville area is donate to the Red Cross or some other organization providing flood relief.  If you haven't heard much about this flood, go to youtube.com and watch one of the many videos that have been posted about it.  The local media is reporting that this is one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit our country. The damage numbers that are being reported are massive - $1.5 billion and climbing - too massive for me to get my head around. I still don't know how this isn't national news, how this isn't a bigger story, but it isn't and at this point it probably never will be.  So, I'm doing what I can and I'm telling you and anyone else who may happen to read this one family's flood story - one story out of thousands.

Enough Dog

I am a dog person and in saying that what I mean is that I bring my dogs into the house and let them lounge on the furniture (when no one is looking) and jump on our bed and give them extra snacks so they'll love me more and basically let them have the run of the house. When Joel and I bought our first house in 1998 it didn't take long for us to bring home our first addition. Cole was an eighty pound eleven month old black lab puppy when we adopted him in October 1998. Over the next few months he continued to grow and grow and by the summer of 1999 he had reached his full height (he could easily rest his chin on our kitchen table) and weight (right at 105 pounds).  He was a lot of dog, some would say enough dog.  Joel definitely thought he was enough dog.

In late September 1999 I was out walking when I ran into my neighbor who was also out walking and she had the most beautiful golden retriever-ish puppy I had ever seen. I fell in love with him at at first sight - I mean absolutely totally overcome with love for this sweet-faced puppy the minute I looked at him.  I knew she fostered pets for a local pet rescue and I was so happy to find out the puppy needed a home.  When Joel got home from work later that afternoon I mentioned the puppy next door.  Joel said we had enough dog.  I thought about what he said and decided that we did have a lot of dog, but I wasn't quite sure we had enough dog.  These things are a judgement call when it comes right down to it and Joel and I judged differently.  That's why when Joel got home from work the next afternoon the puppy from next door was there - strictly on a one-night trial basis.  And that's how the words "trial basis" became a running joke at our house for a long long time.

The first thing we did was brainstorm to find a name for our new puppy.  Our neighbors were calling him Chase, but Joel and I agreed that either way you thought about it "Chase" was a terrible name for a dog.  After much discussion we settled on the name Sam, although it took a while for that name to settle on him.  He was a dog of a thousand names - Sammy Sosa, Sam-I-Am-a-Sam, Sammy BluePaws, Sammy the Raccoon, Sammy de Pantaloons, Fluffy, Fluffinator, Little Dog and Haji.  Yeah, that last name is a long story. Actually, many of his names are long stories. As an aside I'll tell how he got his most infamous name - Sammy BluePaws. Sam was on our bed chewing up a blue ink pen. The pen exploded, which must have scared him because he jumped off the bed and proceeded to leave a trail of blue paw prints from our bedroom into the hallway and down the stairs and around the living room and back up the stairs and through the hall and into the bedroom and back up onto the comforter again where we found him sitting in a puddle of blue ink.  His paws were blue for days. The carpet still had faint blue paw prints on it when we moved out a year later.

Sam was a dog's dog.  He liked to be outside, he liked to drink from the toilet, he liked to dig holes in the mud and lay down in them.  In his younger years he hunted birds and turtles and rabbits and on two memorable occasions brought his catch of the day into the house, I can only guess as presents for us.  He was Cole's Little Buddy.  We told people that "This is our dog Cole and this is Cole's dog Sam." Cole was our dog who needed people.  Sam was our dog who needed another dog.

We shared almost eleven wonderful years with Sam and although we weren't ready to let him go, the last year had been difficult for him.  His buddy Cole passed away very suddenly in early March 2009 and in the weeks after Cole's death Sam seemed to age considerably.  We adopted a new dog, Jack, partly as a buddy for Sam and partly to try to fill the huge void that Cole's death left in my life. I think that Jack was good for Sam.  We had wondered if Sam would take the lead dog role when Jack came into our lives but Sam wasn't interested.  Jack wasn't interested either and Joel and I laughed that Sam and Jack were waging a "race to the bottom" to see who could be the least in charge. On his last morning with us there was a terrible storm at our house.  About 5am a loud clap of thunder sent Owen and Sarah and Sam running for our bed.  Our sweet Sam snuggled right between me and Sarah until the storm was over.  He passed away later that night.  Joel was sitting on the floor with him at the emergency vet clinic and I was on the phone talking to him until he was gone. 

Sam and Jack

Summer 2009

So, we are a one dog family again and much like Cole, Jack is a dog who needs people.  Joel and I have discussed that Jack makes a good "only dog" and we've both agreed that he really is enough dog.  I still miss Cole every single day and he's been gone for over a year.  I haven't even begun to miss Sam yet.  The two of them together helped shepherd Joel and I through the early years of our marriage and becoming parents and so many other things.  We had the pleasure of watching them grow from playful pups to contented middle agers to sometimes curmudgeony old men and we are all the better for it. They were loved very much and they loved us in return and as my cousin's wife said so eloquently, I'm sure my boys are in doggie heaven "running and playing with youthful speed and young hearts." 

Cole (1997-2009) & Sam (1999-2010)

Our Boys

You Can't Prepare for This

     I am an alarmist.  By that I mean whatever plan I make I always make a "what-if" plan for disaster.  My favorite book is the "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook."  When I fly I always wear 100% cotton clothing and Tretorn tennis shoes.  Why you may ask?  Because in the event of a survivable crash, poly-blends may burst into flame and burn faster than 100% cotton and because Tretorns will protect my feet if I have to walk out of a crash site but they don't have enough tread that they will grab the emergency slide on the way down and break my leg.   I have a tornado room and a supply of "duck tape" and today I have a bathtub and several trash cans filled with water because our city is rationing water due to the recent floods and I want to be able to flush a toilet at least once a day. I like to think of myself as a person who is prepared.  It makes me happy and gives me the illusion of safety.  My husband says it makes me a little crazy.  I tell him that he knew I was crazy when he married me - and he did.  I told him about that flying thing before we started dating.  He knew what he was getting.  Do not feel sorry for him.

     Now, to the point of this story. Last Saturday (May 1st) Owen had his first ever sleepover.  It was raining when Joel headed out to pick everyone up but he had planned a fun day for Owen and his friends so off they went.  They began their afternoon at the comic book store because it was free comic book day (yippee) and then he took the boys to Michael's to get art supplies so they could draw their own comics and then he was going to take them to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and get pizza.  Well, the power was out at the "Wimpy Kid" theater because of all the rain so they came home and regrouped and headed out to see "How to Tame Your Dragon."   Joel called me about 7:30 to tell me that he and the boys were at Pizza Perfect and I mentioned that they might want to come on home before it got dark.  It was still raining and I told him that the news had just shown a video of a portable building floating down I-24. He said he'd seen that too and he agreed that it was probably best to cut the pizza portion of the night short and bring the boys home.  

     I had been home with Sarah and our dogs all day and I had noticed sometime during the afternoon that our sweet fluffy dog Sam just didn't seem to be himself.  He's eleven and has arthritis and I thought maybe all the rain was aggravating his joints.  By the time Joel got home, however, I knew it was something more than that.  He was laying on his favorite step and we couldn't get him to come up or go down the stairs - not even for a slice of cheese.  Joel and I took turns sitting with him and checking him over and came to the conclusion that something was very wrong.  So, Joel and my dad headed off into the rain to the Pet Emergency Clinic and both Joel and I knew that it probably wasn't going to go well.  Turns out Sam was hemorrhaging internally, probably from a malignant tumor.  So we made the decision to let him go and I said goodbye to my sweet dog on the phone and Joel held onto him until he was gone.  And it was all very very bad.  It was also 10pm and it was still raining and we were hosting a sleepover for four nine year old boys.

     We woke up to continuing rain on Sunday morning and started making plans to get the three boys home.  Around 9:30 we realized that we couldn't get anyone home because of the flash flooding. No problem, we'd put "Spiderman" in the DVD player and wait for the rain to stop and get the boys home that afternoon.  And then the power went out. And it just kept raining and raining and raining.  Joel took two of the boys on an excursion to Publix and came back to report that we were quite literally marooned and that the houses down below us were flooding.  It was 12 pm and it was still raining.

Joel offered to go to Publix to get some supplies and I realized that meant entertaining four boys who had been without electricity for many hours and that's when I decided to go myself.  Sarah and my dad went with me and what we saw was surreal.  Water completely covered Highway 100 and was within five feet of the traffic light.  We had to circle around and get to Publix the back way (from the high road).  I drove into the parking lot thinking there was no way the store was going to be open, but it was. Publix is based in Florida (home of hurricanes) and they build all of their stores with back-up generators. You couldn't buy anything perishable and the store was darker than usual, but other than that it was like a regular Sunday at Publix.  No one was panicked and people were sharing the bottled water (you take two and I'll take two) and sharing information about what was flooded and what was still dry. Very little was still dry. It also became very clear that we had no way out.  Every road that we could use was flooded. We headed up the hill to our house with a car full of drinks and cereal and poptarts and goldfish crackers.  It was 3pm and it was still raining.

Sarah at Publix

Sunday, May 2nd

Boys are boys and eight and nine year old boys are boys all the time.  They wanted to run at each other with sticks and jump off tall things and wrestle around everywhere and normally I wouldn't care (much) but I knew that if someone broke an arm or needed stitches we were in real trouble. We couldn't call 911. Our phone was out and our cell phones weren't working reliably except for the texting thing and I was pretty sure we weren't going to be able to text 911.  Also, they couldn't get here.  I yelled too much and told them to sit down too much and was basically no fun at all but they didn't know what I knew - that we were in the middle of a natural disaster.  So, Joel and I gathered up flashlights and made sure we had enough for everybody to have one when it got dark and Joel made a third trip to Publix and picked up a charcoal grill.  Around 6pm he made fire (woohoo) and grilled taquitos and calamari and chicken. I hung flashlights from the chandalier in the kitchen which was about the only thing that I did that halfway impressed the boys and we ate dinner and they told silly stories and scary stories and settled in to watch "Return of the Jedi" on my computer and eventually they all fell asleep.  It was very dark outside and inside and around 9pm it finally stopped raining for good.

Joel made fire.

And grilled frozen calamari.

     Monday morning was absolutely beautiful - blue sky, fluffy white clouds and green green grass. We were up early trying to figure out ways to get the boys out of here.  About 9am one of their dad's made it from Brentwood into Bellevue and I'm only kind of kidding when I say that he had to drive through Alabama to get here.  We were all very happy to see him and we quickly packed all the boys up, including Owen, and sent them out into the civilized world.  Poor Sarah had to stay with us but that's just the way it had to be.  Our power came back on early Wednesday morning and our lives up here on this hill are pretty much unaffected - hundreds and hundreds of our neighbors cannot say the same thing.  Their homes and cars were flooded and today they are cleaning out mud and debris and trying to figure out what to do next.  My community of Bellevue has been completely devastated and I know that we are very very lucky to have so little damage. We need new carpet in the basement and we may have some roof and gutter damage but Joel and my dad and five children and I rode out the flood of the century on top of our hill in Bellevue and we are all safe and sound today. I also know that someday these boys will all tell their own children about their adventure. I've joked that I need to get them shirts that say "I survived Owen's Sleepover and the Great Bellevue Flood of 2010."  And I tell you all of that to tell you this - no matter how prepared you may be, when disaster strikes you are flying by the seat of your pants. Fortunately, mine were 100% cotton.

Driving out of Bellevue on Highway 100

Tuesday Afternoon, May 4th

My only looky-lou photo.

This house isn't that close to the Harpeth River.

Can you see the water line halfway up the house?

I took this photo on Monday, May 3rd while we

were trying to find a way off our island in Bellevue.