Nashville residents return home to devastation

[May 06, 2010]  NASHVILLE, TENN. (AP) -- Amanda Fatheree had about an hour to flee the floodwaters from her west Nashville home Sunday with her husband, mother and three young children. What she saw when she returned a day later left her heartbroken.

Caption: Walter Smart, a volunteer with Hands on Nashville, walks past a home Wednesday that was knocked off its foundation by floodwaters from White's Creek and came to rest 25 yards away on Hummingbird Road in north Nashville, Tenn. Smart was canvassing the neighborhood, checking on the needs of residents affected by the flood. The Cumberland River and its tributaries flooded parts of middle Tennessee after a record-breaking weekend storm dumped more than a foot of rain in two days, rapidly spilling water into homes, roads and some of Music City's best-known attractions. (AP photo by M. Spencer Green)

Furniture she and her husband spent years paying off stood in their front yard, soaked and caked with mud from deadly flooding caused by record-busting rains that forced thousands to evacuate -- some by boat and canoe. Her children's toys, clothes, books and games were destroyed, along with two vehicles that were left behind.

"When I first got here, I just cried and cried. My whole life was gone," she said.

Flash flooding and storms killed at least 29 people in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky and at least two people were still missing Wednesday. The flooding was caused by rains of more than 13 inches and affected both rich and poor in this metropolitan area of about 1 million.

Mayor Karl Dean estimates the damage from weekend flooding could easily top $1 billion in Nashville alone.

As the rain-swollen Cumberland River continued to recede Wednesday, Nashville's downtown remained without power and one of two water plants was disabled, but officials said progress was being made on both problems.

It was getting easier to get around Nashville, and to clean up. City crews were set to begin hauling away residents' flood-ruined possessions Thursday and some roads, closed by high water, reopened.

Ralithea Hill and her husband swam out of their front yard early Sunday, each carrying one of the family dogs. The couple returned home to find almost everything damaged or destroyed by the water.

"In a matter of 30 minutes, everything you worked for, everything you thought was valuable, it all looks like trash," said Hill, a 39-year-old surgical technologist and mother of four. The family's furniture, clothes, bedding and rugs sat in the front of their north Nashville home, soaked and contaminated by the dirty water. She said there was no chance at saving any of it.

Pam Hiers still wasn't able to get into her home in the Pennington Bend neighborhood. Standing in waders in the murky floodwaters, Hiers could only look toward the house and imagine the devastation inside.

"You just actually get sick thinking about that first step when you walk into your home," she said. "We didn't get anything out of the house because it all happened so quickly -- pictures, important papers, I don't even have a checkbook."

Her parents died several years ago and everything the 50-year-old mental health therapist inherited from them is in the house she shares with a 65-year-old aunt, she said.

The flash floods were blamed in the deaths of at least 18 people in Tennessee alone, including nine in Nashville. An additional 10 deaths from the weekend storms were reported in Kentucky and Mississippi, and one person was killed over the weekend in a tornado in Tennessee.

Though officials said there had been a decrease in requests for search and rescue, police in Memphis said a 32-year-old man was missing since Saturday after he abandoned his car because of high flood waters.

A body was recovered Wednesday in Memphis, but authorities haven't confirmed if it was the missing man or even a flood victim.

In Kentucky, authorities also were searching for a missing kayaker last seen on the Green River.

Although the National Weather Service said the Cumberland had dropped about 3 feet from its crest of 12 feet on Sunday, water still covered the city's so-called tent city, home to about 140 homeless people under an interstate bypass along the riverbank. Several former residents walked the railroad tracks that bordered the high side of the encampment Wednesday to see if they could recover any of their belongings.

"People have been trickling down here all day long," said Raphael McPherson, a 47-year-old resident who was at the site trying to find his cat, Jack. "They're trying to see how far the water has receded and if they can even go back and get anything, but it's a toxic area now."

McPherson and others said city officials had told them contaminants from the surrounding industrial area would make their campsite uninhabitable even after the water goes down.

"They're not going to open tent city again," he said.

[Associated Press; By SHEILA BURKE and TRAVIS LOLLER]

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