Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Yes, Nashville is a mess, and here at work there are some folks in the flooded areas of Bellevue and other surrounding towns with whom we've not yet been able to make contact (areas which are not only flooded, but also without power and telephone service).

However, the parts of town where I live and work are on relatively high ground, so my only hazard on the way to work this morning was downed trees and tree limbs blocking or partially blocking some major side streets.

I had no idea how bad it was for everyone else until I tried to turn on NPR during breakfast this morning and found only dead air where the FM station should be (though the AM station from Clarksville was going strong with news from the BBC World Service -- which wasn't a lot of help in finding out about road closures, etc.!). Then I turned on the TV news and found that the Metrocenter area (where the WPLN offices and transmitter are located) had been voluntarily evacuated, since there's nothing but a grass-covered earth embankment to hold back the Cumberland River at that point, and if it's overtopped or gives way, they'd be in deep water and no way out.

I count myself lucky to still have power, since a lot of folks who weren't flooded ARE without electricity, and so many people are unaccounted for as yet.

Meanwhile, the selfish part of my mind is very glad that I washed my hair yesterday afternoon, before I knew that we'd lost half our water-treatment capacity and should only use water for drinking and food preparation until further notice. I've got a 5-gallon bucket full of rainwater out on the deck to use for flushing my low-flow toilet at home a few times, if worse comes to worst, and several plastic containers of drinking water in the fridge, so my water needs (now that my hair is clean) shouldn't be very great.