Today marks the one year anniversary of the devastating flood that hit Nashville. The anniversary of the havoc that was wreaked on my beloved city. The anniversary of precious lives that were lost and homes destroyed. I took these photos a couple of days after the rain stopped. I stood on the pedestrian bridge downtown for some of them; others were taken in a friend’s neighborhood in Bellevue. In the days that followed the flood, we just showed up and offered to help. That’s all we knew to do. I quickly realized why I love this city. The flood crushed our homes and our neighborhoods, but it didn’t crush our spirits. I’ve never seen volunteerism at that level. I’ve never seen a community come together to help friends, family and complete strangers begin to rebuild their lives. We didn’t get national media coverage for very long, and I’m convinced it’s because we stood together. You didn’t hear about looting or chaos like you often hear of when natural disasters strike. What you heard about in the local news was story after story of community, of encouragement, of renewal and of hope. Looking back on the past year, I’ve never been so proud to be a Nashvillian.
