Monday, May 3, 2010
The rain has stopped. I know this before I open my eyes. Chris has thrown open our bedroom windows, and the only sound to be heard is the singing of birds. I walk outside and stand in the yard. Other than the birds, everything is eerily silent. No 18-wheelers humming in the distance from Interstate 40. No jets buzzing across the sky. “It sounds just like it did after 9/11,” I whisper to Chris, who has joined me with cups of coffee. We later learn that all interstates are closed and that the airport has been shut down. The air tastes fresher than I ever remember.

I go inside to check my e-mail. The neighborhood message board is lit up with stories of flooding basements, neighbors wading in chest-deep water, trying to get to their fuse boxes ahead of the rising water. Many of these neighbors live on higher ground than we do. I gingerly step down the stairs leading to our basement. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that it’s dry.

The phone rings. It’s Mike Utley. Mike is Jimmy Buffett’s band leader, and he’s also been coproducing my new CD. He tells me the studio where we’ve been working is okay, at least the upstairs is. Casey Wood, the engineer who owns the studio, has managed to salvage most of the things in the basement.

“I’ve heard that Soundcheck is completely flooded,” Mike adds.

Soundcheck Nashville is a 160,000-square-foot rehearsal/storage facility on the east bank of the Cumberland River. Many touring musicians store their gear there, including Mike. “Hopefully it’s all still on the truck from the show,” he says. We later learn his gear got flooded, including the Hammond B3 organ he’s been playing since his days with the Dixie Flyers. Also ruined were Duane Eddy’s vintage guitars, forty guitars owned by Vince Gill, and Keith Urban’s entire guitar collection, including Waylon Jennings’s hand-tooled leather Telecaster, which Urban bought at auction for $90,000.

My friend, the journalist-songwriter Peter Cooper, visits Soundcheck the first day they let people in. “The only thing I could remotely compare it to,” he says, “is Johnny Cash’s visitation. Somebody said, ‘Look! There’s Johnny Cash!’ while pointing to the open casket. All I could think was ‘Naw, that’s not Johnny Cash.’ Because his spirit wasn’t there, you know? Well, seeing those instruments was like that. The life in them was gone.”

I am overwhelmed with stories and images of the flood. Opryland Hotel and the Grand Ole Opry House—flooded. The basement of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, where two Steinway grands, kettle drums, and other instruments are stored and now presumed ruined—flooded. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Bridgestone Arena, where I sang with Jimmy two long nights ago—flooded.

Later, we learn that thirty-one lives are lost in the storm. At least two thousand homes destroyed. Still later, Chris and I will visit the Nations neighborhood near Morrow Road. With our neighbor, Tric Drake, we will grill hot dogs and hand out food to volunteers and families. As we walk the streets between mountains of ruined belongings, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl rides up on a muddy bicycle. “Do you have any clothes?” she asks. The clothes on her back are all she has left—clothes she’s been wearing for five days.

As the Harpeth and other secondary rivers and creeks begin to subside, the Cumberland, which is the main river they all feed into, continues to rise. We’re told it will crest at approximately six o’clock this evening.

After supper, I grab my camera to head downtown. “Why are you going down there?” Chris asks. “Because this is history!” I say, sounding every bit like my mother. Chris reluctantly comes along.

Downtown is flooded and blocked off, so we drive over the Shelby Street Bridge to one of the higher-elevated parking lots behind LP Field. We are not alone. Streams of people exit their cars, cameras in tow, and begin heading for the bridge. More people jostle for position at the top. I am loving this cross section of Nashville’s citizenry. Red and yellow, black and white / They are precious in His sight.

A woman holds a pit bull terrier up to the rail. “Look, Precious,” she coos. “See the flood?” We exchange smiles.

It’s moments before sunset. The sky is soft and clear. Chris and I stand at the very top of the bridge. The muddy water in the Cumberland below looks like it’s moving at about 30 miles per hour. A tire floats by amidst the debris, which is mostly logs and tree limbs and brush. A dead cow floats by, its stomach grossly distended. The contrast between the beautiful light and sky above and the muddy chaos below is not lost on me. I think of how it is with floods, the fine line between total destruction and being unscathed. I snap a few pictures. I want my friends to know what I’ve seen.

As I stand there gazing out over the flooded city I love, the tears finally come. My God, this is happening to Nashville. This is happening to me! And in that moment, Nashville becomes more than a city. It becomes an old friend I’ve known and loved for over forty years. A place where spirits fly free and are miraculously turned into music.

Flood damage to Nashville is estimated at $1 billion to $2 billion. To support the ongoing recovery, visit the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee at cfmt.org.