"And the rain was upon the earth..."

This past weekend we went to Nashville (Technically Franklin, TN) to stay with Dave's family. We went to work on our rental house in Spring Hill to prepare it to go on the market. That's a whole other post. When we left Saturday morning to go to Spring Hill Mike warned us that they were predicting 4-8 inches of rain and that we should drive carefully. Boy, was that the understatement of the century...literally!!! After a few hours of painting we ran out to get some lunch and much to our surprise the exit ramp we used only 2 hours earlier was under 3 feet of water! The tornado sirens were going off and we ended up seeking shelter in the Home Depot employee lounge. After the tornado warning expired we went back to our painting; we had work to do! We knew it was still raining and might flood but could not comprehend to what extent. By 7pm Dave's mom was frantically calling us, telling us to get on the road before we couldn't get back. Several of the roads back to the interstate were completely flooded. We nearly didn't make it back to their house because of the 3 feet of standing water on the roads in their neighborhood. Their house backs up to the Harpeth River in Franklin. The backyard is very large and is about a quarter of a mile from the river. It's hard to describe the volume of water and craziness we saw unless you have some idea what it looked like before.

BEFORE

SATURDAY NIGHT

10pm

Midnight

Around 11ish Dave and I were standing on the deck and noticed that the hottub was crooked. Hmmm... It was floating away! So Dave hopped in the river and waded out to the hottub and tethered it to the deck with the garden hose. But it stayed!

SUNDAY MORNING

About 7am Sunday the wind, lightening, and thunder was so crazy it actually woke me up. And some of you know what a great feat that is. The waters had receded but the tornado warnings were in full effect. For a brief time we could actually see the grass! But with a line of storms in the forecast hope didn't last long.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

As promised the rain returned! And in full force! It rained all day long. We heard some pretty stupid news anchormen say things like, "Surely by this point there have been 100's of thousands of dollars worth of damage, maybe even a million." Seriously?!?! We could look down the street and see a million dollars worth of damage. Then there was the breaking press release from the Tennessean reporting that the Monday newspaper would not be delivered. REALLY? Is this really what people were concerned about? Dave and I couldn't take anymore and left the house to roam the streets and take in the sights. We took Maggie with us and she was happy to get out. The coolest thing was watching the water crest over one street and pour down and fill in a small culde sac. In less than 5 minutes we watched it fill in with over 2 feet of water. Crazy! Below are the majority of the pictures which were all take Sunday afternoon.

Dave and I actually waded out into this section of water to check on one home for some folks. At the point we turned around I was up to my chest in water and Dave was past his neck, having to tread water. It was cold.

This was Jamie and Mike's neighbor's house. Water did get inside on the first floor and their van caught fire Monday morning when the seat heaters shorted out.

The weather did not phase Emily. She was in love with the Canoe which we safely stored on the front steps.

This is the storage closet in their garage. You can see the water got up to just below the door handle. Thankfully their house is built on top of the garage.

Not one to miss an opportunity for fun, Jamie threatened to push Dave in the water at which point he threatened to take her in with him. Fun. Fun.

There's my redneck husband showing his roots. He is fishing in the driveway. Not many times you can say you've done that!

SUNDAY NIGHT

Sunday night the rain stopped but the water was still high. The National Guard actually came to try and evacuate us. But at 10pm with the rain subsiding and a sleeping toddler upstairs there was no way we were getting in a boat! I know we must have seemed like those redneck holdouts on the news, but less than 30 minutes after Mr. National Guard left the water had already receded 3 inches. Here's what the garage looked like in the aftermath. Dave asked me to note that he thought the man was an idiot.

MONDAY MORNING

This is the neighbor's 8 foot fence that was completely submerged in water for the past 2 days. As you can see the solid brick post was knocked over by the strong current.

Some perspective. This is what the backyard looked like before the rain. Mike's Explorer would have been completely submerged if it had been there during the storm.

Before we left town we had to take the opportunity to visit with the cutest baby to grace Williamson County, Miss Rowan. We lunched at Cracker Barrel.

Check out those thighs!!!!

Dave and Ro-Ro.

When we got home we all needed a good hot bath. Luckily Grandma Jamie had bought Emily some bathtub crayons. Thanks Grandma Jamie, really, thanks! ;)

In the end, the weekend was very humbling. It truly is an awesome thing to see the power of our great God. In a world where we often feel so in control of what we do and how we do it, sometimes we need a good smack in the face that we are never in charge. He is in control always.