First Activation: Flooding in Christiana

This past Thursday morning, at about ten minutes to eleven, I was working at my desk when I noticed a new email from Greg King, the CEO of the Heart of Tennessee Chapter of the American Red Cross. "We have some flooding in South Rutherford County. Please head to Murfreesboro to assist."

I quickly packed up my laptop, grabbed a bottle of water and a can of Sun Drop from the fridge, and left the office. After stopping at home to change trousers and put on some boots, and a quick stop at the gas station to fill up, I headed north on I-24, directly to the Murfreesboro office. Forty five minutes flat. Greg was waiting with Lee Doherty, a DAT Captain (Disaster Action Team). I was immediately loaded up with food and water, and dispatched to a local school, where I was told we would be setting up a shelter.

Arriving at Christiana Elementary, I met Kiel Hargrove (emergency services director) who told me we'd be setting up shelter at a church down the road - Crossway Baptist. We hadn't yet signed agreement with Crossway, so as others were handling certain preparations, I was tasked with drawing up the shelter agreement papers, getting them signed, and then performing a walk-through to note any existing damages to the building before we put it into use as a shelter.

The sanctuary had at least two hundred seats that needed to be unlocked from each other and stacked against the wall. And then, before I knew it, it was time to head to McDonalds to pick up a hundred and fifty double cheeseburgers and fries. After dropping some off at the church for the staff and evacuees to eat, I headed to Christiana Middle school to give the rest to the first responders.

Pulling up in a Red Cross van, I was looked at with some puzzlement. But when I got out and said "You guys want some food?" the smiles and shouts began. Firefighters, river rescuers and others came out of the woodwork and surrounded the Rubbermaid chest that contained the food, and the stack of bottled water cases next to it.

"We sure are hungry. Food ain't passed these lips all day." It was five o'clock in the evening.

At 9 pm, the shelter still hadn't taken in any evacuees that would stay the night. I was sent home, and I drove back to Tullahoma.

I arrived the next day (Friday) to learn that a homeless man had been sleeping on the pavement in front of the church when their doors had opened that morning. The man was let into the shelter, where he slept for several hours.

No one else had made use of the shelter. Our job was now to await more expected rain to see if the floods would recur. While waiting, volunteers went out into the area in teams of two and three to perform damage assessments, as a precursor to determining how much financial assistance, if any, they would receive from the red cross.

At noon, I drove to Subway and picked up 40 subs, also stopping at Kroger's groceries for a few bags of ice and some soda. I returned to the shelter with the food. Our sleeping "client" was awake and he ate as well.

It wasn't long before I drove up to Nashville to collect 35 "cleanup kits." These are boxes with brooms, mops, buckets, bleach, etc. On the drive back, I was stopped in traffic due to a "blasting incident" on I-24. The gridlock was miles long. Friday afternoon rush hour. Perfect time to be "blasting" along side the interstate. Don't you think? The on-and-off showers weren't making for much safer road conditions, either.

After some creative re-routing, I made it back to the shelter. The Red Cross staff was there still, though the shelter was officially closed. The cleanup kits remained in the back of the van, which stayed parked in the church lot until the next morning, when more volunteers would come back to drive around and distribute the kits to families whose homes had been damaged in the flood.

At 6 pm, I and five others were the last of the Red Cross personnel to leave the Crossway Baptist Church and head home.

Thank God we weren't much needed. But thank God we were ready anyway.

Remarks on 9-11

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5)

Times are clearly grave when an entire Nation asks itself for days and weeks on end “When can we smile again? When will it be okay to laugh? When will we stop crying?”

There isn’t one among us who doesn’t remember where we were and what we were doing on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when we learned our Country was under attack. When, after the initial shock and disbelief, we rushed to the nearest radio or television set, we bore witness to true horror. In the immediate aftermath, all Americans, and people the world over, from all walks of life felt uncertainty, anger, fear, and sadness for the murder of innocent Americans. For the bravery and sacrifice of the first responders, who gave their lives so that their countrymen might live - the tragedy of their loss is surpassed only by the measure of their heroism. As we remember and honor them today, we remember that verse from America the Beautiful:

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life.

“United we stand” was the phrase that became the antidote to our sadness – the bittersweet medicine of unity in the face of adversity, and the realization that all of our previous differences were small when compared to the pride in knowing that we are all Americans; knowing that, in order to make it through, we had to stay together, and we would help one another. The examples are innumerable:

Firemen, policemen, and paramedics who always look after each other in the face of danger, and whose families stayed together and prayed together for the safe return of their loved ones, continued to support and comfort each other throughout all uncertainty. Volunteer grief counselors, some of whom had lost loved ones years before in the Oklahoma City bombing, came to console the families of all those who had lost their lives. Blood donors, financial contributors, doctors, soldiers, all responded to the Nation’s needs. Throughout the entire United States, the richest and poorest among us stood in line and stayed on hold in our eagerness to help.

We didn’t do this because we were following somebody’s orders. And we didn’t do it out of some sense of guilt. Rather we did it out of selfless instinct – for the sake of humanity - knowing “I am my brother’s keeper.”

We have not forgotten. And we will never forget. Today, on this solemn occasion, we pay tribute to those who lost their lives, and who made the ultimate sacrifice to save their fellow man. And while we mourn their loss, let us also remember the ways in which we helped each other to heal. Let us celebrate our own resilience, our common humanity and compassion, and our pride as Americans in knowing that, though the towers fell, though the walls crumbled, and though many souls perished, still, united we stand.

Eight years have now passed since that fateful morning and, as a matter of course, much has changed around us. But we, nevertheless, hold fast to the principle that we are one Nation under God, and we are indivisible. Today, despite all the pain and anger that has marked the road we’ve traveled, we are stronger for it. There is more in life that we hold dear and there is less that we take for granted. Our faith is renewed, and the burning light within us - the spirit of the American ideal - has not been, and never will be extinguished.

As the song says:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.