A picture if worth a thousand words!

So it is "official" the city has decided to condemn the building where our center was located. Our facilities manager, site director and senior site director had the opportunity to visit the location yesterday ( upon seeing these pictures I had absolutely no clue as to why they would want to) to access the damage. Here are a few shots from the outside as well as the inside.

Our site director administrative assistant's cube. As you can see everything including her chair has floated to the top of the desk.

On of the workstations within the center, covered in a layer of riverbed mud. We had just completed a full equipment upgrade on our floor with the last shipment of PC's put into place just a few weeks ago.

This is the security guards desk. We were told there was about 5 - 5.5ft of standing water throughout the building for no less than (4) days. Everything was saturated, even things that sat desk level and higher.This is a shot of my office, notice all that is "filling" in my inbox is mud. I didn't have much in my office in the way of personal items. However, I did have two paintings my daughter had made with the clown fish being my favorite. She painted the picture of a clown fish adding a clown's nose and a multi-colored wig to the fish. I was sad to lose this treasure.

I was told there were several large water snakes around to greet them as they made their way through the 80,000+ square feet. It is a good thing they decided to take a peek yesterday as we were told the ceilings were beginning to cave in today.

For now we have taken up residence on the second floor of a local hotel. We are running our "command center" from this location. We are hopefully to have a temporary site in the next few weeks and hopefully a new home to hang our shingle in a few months.

Oh...I saved the best for last. Here is a picture of one of the "greeter" he was hanging around on the fence outside our lunchroom. No doubt taking full advantage of the warm sun to dry out after all the floating around!

The Great Flood Continues

This morning reports reflect the river at over 62ft, which is well about flood level. The national weather station said it will probably be Thursday or Friday before we begin to see any decrease in the river levels.

A friend sent me a copy of this photo, which show a aerial view of downtown near Riverside Drive. The big building to the left with the large black roof if the building where our center sat, suffice it to say it is underwater.

I am working from home until we can find a temporary location to house our employees and equipment. I am connected via e-mail, instant messaging, mobile work phone, mobile personal phone and home phone. Let me tell you they are getting the better end of the deal as I am doing (3) times the work . You have to love technology!

Does anyone have a used Ark for sale?

Well it......rained for (40) days and (40) nights without a stoppin'. Oh it rained so hard that the water stopped a droppin'. Oh didn't it rain children my LORD.....didn't it rain! It is no secret middle Tennessee has been plastered over the national news as we endured historic flooding. Nashville has turned into a large river, forcing the evacuation of the Opryland hotel, closure of the airports and the total submergence of some historic neighborhoods. I am working from home as the building which housed or call center has 3 -6 feet of standing water inside. Our building backs up to two rivers the Cumberland and the Red, both of which are contributing to the exceedingly "moist" conditions. The city/county and private schools are closed. Many areas are without power and they are threatening to cut off our water due to sewage back ups! Thank goodness we had the foresight to pick a house, which sat on high ground, you can keep that river view property! A few friends and co-workers have been able to snap a few photos. One works for TDOT, so I had a inside connection as to quote him "I work for TDOT...I can get anywhere I want to!" So take a look at our fair city, we will no doubt be a while drying out from this one! This picture was taken from the parking lot of my favorite sub shop - Submarina. This use to be a road in front, but now the river has breached and has claimed it for it's own.

Wonder if Hardware city is running any specials on jon jon boats? The river backs up to this building, but as you can see the water has made it across the street.

This is the side view of where I "use to work" as I don't believe we will be occupying this building anytime soon!

Close up view of the strip mall which houses our center. Note to the right of the light pole with the flag (blue/white) you can just make out the top of a submerged car! Can you believe the new casters are encouraging people to refrain from "boating" around as it is likely that their outboards motors will hit a submerged car....oh my!

This is the corner, which I would normally turn at to take our daughter to school. Shoney's will be running a "fresh" fish special later in the week, as I am sure the fish will be swimming right up to the door. However, upon further inspection of this murky water, I don't believe I would want to eat any of that!

This is a shot (aerial) looking down Riverside drive. The river has crossed the street and it up 3-4 feet in the parking lots of the businesses.

This is the Hi/Lo gas station...there is nothing more I need to say about this picture.

Intersection (last night) at Second and Riverside. Our daughter's school is right up the hill, though there is no way to get through the water to get there.

This picture was taken around 0830 this morning right before TDOT closed the bridge. There is a road under there somewhere. There has been ongoing construction on the Lynnwood Tarpley bridge for months as it was deemed one of the worse (structural) bridges in TN. Needless to say this water isn't helping that situation any!

Arby's parking lot, across the street from where I work. This was taken early this morning, the water has increased since then.

The river is still on the rise and they aren't anticipating maximum water conditions until Wednesday around noon. I did want to share with you a quote I found in our local paper, which described some of the damaged our area has received.

"Two homes on Possum Hollow Road in southeast Montgomery County suffered severe damage, as waters decimated the inside of a double-wide trailer and displaced another trailer from its foundation, a neighbor said."

Only in middle Tennessee would you have a road named Possum Hollow (pronounced haller). Only in middle Tennessee would the most severe damage happen to double wide trailers. I would like to say this was limited to our area only, however if any of you have watched the national news over the last (36) hours, you were no doubt amazed by the double wide trailer floating down I-24 in metro Nashville.

I have nothing more to add! God willing and the creeks don't rise (any higher) we will dry out by the end of the week just in time for weekend showers...oh my!

River on the Rise

If you have been keeping up with our weather, you already know we have had a lot of heavy rain. As a result all of the rivers and creeks in our area are swollen and on the rise. As a result, I have temporarily lost one of my favorite places to walk ...the Riverwalk. I took these pictures of the river on the rise on Friday. The sidewalks were covered in water, along with the ampitheather and several of the benches and light post. Today upon a drive by I noted all the benches were under water, along with the majority of the parking lot, and remaining sidewalk. If the river rises another 4 feet, it will be in the parking lot of my employer. I will keep you posted on how that works out!