Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Our Bus Trip and the Middle Tennessee Flood of 2010

(This will be the first of a few posts from the historic, Nashville Tn Flood May 1-3, 2010- as always this is an upload from my blog: www.jayopsis.blogspot.com- Facebook doesn't always pick up my entries, so I suggest you become a follower at the main site)

  I was a chaperon this weekend (May 1) with out Middle School band on a bus trip to Atlanta. It was a great time by all. I want to really brag on our band director, Max Fulwider. This is a man who loves the Lord, loves kids, and loves music and works wonders in his program.
  After a morning competition, we spent the rest of the day at Six Flags- an almost perfect day. Cloudy, a little humid- but not packed. We rode almost every ride twice. Our first two stops, Batman ride and Superman ride was about a 3 minute wait. By the way the Goliath and Superman roller coasters at Six Flags are the most amazing rides ever!
  The  real adventure came, though, as we began to get information back from Nashville about an epic flood event taking place. There were severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, and closed interstates to the west of us.
   I want to mention here about how well technology served us- a huge blessing from God- to be able to pull up video, maps,  pictures, to instantly text updates made it possible to plan a route and make good decisions.
   We were especially thankful for contact with an EMA director and very helpful parents. In God's goodness, we were able to get back with very little rain- we were granted a window of travel and were prepared to shut it down at anytime and hunker down in a hotel for the night.
   Our route was directed from I-24 to Murphreesboro and then we had to cut west to I-65. We then had to negotiate open roads hoping to get to Hillsboro Rd just south of Fieldstone Farms. Our plan was going fabulous, we even skirted a huge storm as it passed just north of 840, until we got to the last 30 yds.
  Here I was, looking at Hillsboro Rd- our route to freedom and we were stopped by water coming over the road- stuck. The Franklin police stopped us and suggested an alternate route.
   We had to BACK the bus up about 1/2 mile to Hwy 31 and go south. When we got to Franklin, we began to see the devastation this day of downpours had produced- flooded homes, businesses, and floating cars were startling enough to even make the middle school students watch in silence.
  The final mile had to be connected by a Police escort going up the southbound lane of Hillsboro.
We pulled into Publix to a bunch of grateful parents. The bus continued on to our school.
  The last student made it to their stop at 1AM. Our last parent chaperon was the last car to go over a bridge in downtown Franklin before the bridge was closed. The city got over 12 inches of rain that day and there was another 8-10 inches predicted for the next day. I woke up the next morning (Sunday) to tornado warnings and we would watch our town get slammed by flooding. But I was so thankful to be home..... so thankful to be home... so thankful to be home!

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