Catching everyone up to speed

On Friday, April 30th, and Saturday, May 1st, Nashville received on average 13 inches of rain fall. The record in the area for a two day span was around 6 inches. I was stuck at my house saturday and sunday because run off flooding. My garage was completely covered in water as well as my crawl space/basement area. On Sunday my power was out all day and had no idea what was going on here. Apparently Sunday evening they opened the dams and people around the rivers began to flood. My mom, Cathy, was at DFW and younger brother, Caleb, was at his girlfriends house. Interstates and streets were flooding. I had a situation occur that caused me to get upset and my dad drove down to get me. I packed up some things to go with him when we received a call from my older brother that lives 30 minutes north. He asked my dad to drive and take a look at our moms house. When we arrived my moms house was flooded. The water level was at the bottom of the window. She has one dog and 3 horses, but helps take care of our neighbors 3 horses. I made some phone calls trying to get some help. My uncle Casey was the first there.

My uncle borrowed a one man blow up raft with two small ores and went searching for the dog. Our first priority was to get my moms dog, Rueger. He found the dog on a table on the back porch in a foot of rising water. I found a neighbor with a small boat that had a trolling motor. He took me and a family friend, John, out to find my uncle. We found him in paddling around in the front yard. John and I grabbed Rueger and pulled him in. Rueger was so excited he was all over me with kisses. When Rueger made it to shore he peed for 5 minutes. Apparently dogs don't pee in water. We made it back to shore with the dog as my older brother, Casey, pulled up with a canoe. By this time we had my dad, uncle, aunt, brother, cousin, family friend, S.O.L, B.O.L, D.O.L., lots of neighbors, and myself.

Casey, Casey, and John took off into the water with the canoe to start the search for the six horses. They didn't pass the intersection before they spotted the first horse. It was swimming toward them down the street. They paddled to it and my brother jumped in, hooked on a lead, and walked him out. It took a while to get him to the shore because he was not wanting to move once he could stand up. They rested a minute and took off again. This time it took them over an hour. They brought back Flare. She came close to drawning and at one point got her leg stuck in the tractor. My brother had to go under and get her leg loose. After a longer rest they headed back out. They brought Tony back this time. This horse was cheered on by our entire family. Tony was my papa's horse. My papa originally owned the farm land and my mother took it over after his death 6 years ago. At this point my brother was wearing out and needed a longer break.

He was jumping in the water, hooking them to a lead, treading the water, and trying to lead them to the shore. Thank God that he is in fantastic shape right now. He leaves this Saturday to Virginia fro the Law Enforcement United Tour where he rides on a bicycle 250 miles in honor of police officers killed in the line of duty. The tour goes from Virginia to D.C.

The last time he went out was the hardest. He went with his friend John and Eric on a fishing boat Eric brought over. They found Shayane in a back pasture closer to the main part of the river swimming. She put up a fight with Casey. Her tail got caught in the prop and Casey had to cut her tail with his pocket knife. Don't worry it was just the hair. His friends called it quits when She took him under. By this time I was with my uncle, one of his friends, and two neighbors with a huge boat. We had gone to the house to see what we could get. We heard the three guys yelling and argueing coming back toward the house. None of them were okay with the decision to leaver the horse behind but I would rather have my brother. They pulled up beside us and my brother jumped in our boat.

My uncle and a neighbor had busted in a window and started searching for a cedar chest. My mom had always kept family pictures in this chest as long as I remember. They found it before my brother got in to join them. However, there were no pictures in it. They ended up finding them in the top of a closet in little boxes and a big storage bin. Come to find out a month ago my mom had the idea of moving them there. Another way God prepared our family for this flood! We ended up with pictures, jewelry, nana's quilts, and left over dirty santa gifts. That made me laugh. About 3 am we called it quits with a dog and 3 horses saved, 1 left behind, and 2 missing.

Mom and Caleb saw the house the next day. The water crested at one point at the gutters of the house. My brother and a neighbor went to the back of the property and found Shayane the horse they left floating were they had left her. The days start running together after this. In the next post I will tell you about our famous Cole horse rescue.

This is a tragedy that has occured in Nashville. There are lots that have lost their homes and most everything in it. Including my mother! We are truely blessed with how much support we have received. If you would like to help there is lots you can do. First and for most pray! We need that more than anything in trying to stay sane right now. Second if you are able go out in Nashville and surrounding areas and help. There is lots you can do! To give you an idea on how you can help some of the things people have done for us our helped in clean up, given us supplies, washed clothes, and cooked a meal. Supplies could be cleaning supplies, boxes, storage bins, snacks, food, water, toiletries, clothes, newspaper to pack up dishes, gloves, masks, boots, hay(for the horses) etc. If you can't get out and help look at donating to some awesome organizations. Click on the following link for more info: http://www.wsmv.com/news/23448373/detail.html Some organizations helping out in this area are Red Cross, Second Harvest Food Bank, and Hands on Nashville. We were just able to get into the house today, so anyone who wants to come help in the clean up let me know.

Thank you for your prayers!