The slope down the road from the office park to the convenience store where I buy snacks or gas up my car is barely noticeable. I mean, yeah, if someone asked if I was walking uphill or down on my way back to work, I’d certainly say it was up, but it’s not even enough to make your legs tired. Just a gentle rise.
The office reopened for real today. It had been marginally, chaotically open for a while yesterday, but only some people went in (I didn’t, it was my anniversary and I requested off well in advance). The phones didn’t work until today, and even then, they kept cutting off, as did our computer system, But today, all was sort of normal, other than having to drive up a side entrance near Bob Evans restaurant, and having Comcast vans parked all over the place. There is a Comcast call center near us, but it’s not the service facility, and there are never more than a few vans. I assume their service facility must be flooded.
Anyway, I took a break mid morning and walked down to the convenience store and the world changed. I found myself looking at the edge of the disaster zone. The Cumberland River came up past the parking lot of the store. At first, I had a hard time figuring out where the side road I was on ended and the main road started. Then I saw the brick pillars at the entry to the office park, well across the water, where the main road would be. A mostly submerged car was laid up against one of the brick pillars. I wasn’t sure of the driver lost control and crashed into it or if the car drifted and came to rest there. Another submerged car sat near one of the gas pumps. I know the river rose quickly. I think it caught people off guard.
A helicopter flew overhead, circling Gaylord Opryland Hotel, shooting the footage I saw later that night on NBC news. If he had panned a little further, to where the water stopped and dry land began, you would have seen me standing at the edge, watching.
I’m putting in a link because the Opryland hotel is incredible place. We had a write-in there last year in the Delta section, on a terrace overlooking a fountain, now full of Cumberland River.
http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylord-opryland/360/gaylord-opryland-virtual-tour.html?intcmp=op-cid=360view-banner
I stood in the sunshine and a few folks joined me. There was a duck boat stashed nearby. One of the guys said he had paddled around in it earlier, around the Holiday Inn, whose parking lot was swamped but the hotel looked okay, and down to the Windham. He was one of the owners of that hotel, and it got hit hard. Someone asked if I was from FEMA, and I realized I was wearing an ID with a government seal, looking at a disaster zone.
I turned to go. The road back up looked like it always did. The grass in the office park was lush, maybe a bit long. Birds chirped in the trees and the scattered green spaces between the low, brick and glass fronted buildings.
Just a low rise, but it made all the difference.
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