Nashville Mission Trip 2011
A group of ten members of First Presbyterian Church of Pittsford (FPC) is currently in Nashville, Tennessee on a Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) mission trip to help rebuild homes damaged by a major flood last May. There were 31 deaths due to the flood which resulted from up to 19 inches of rain received in a two day period – May 1 to 2, 2010. The Cumberland river crested at 52 feet in Nashville. (see more information about the flood below)
PDA reached out to help FPC after our Church’s fire that was caused by a lightning strike in 2004. We became aware of how important PDA can be and since in January 2006, FPC has sent many groups of volunteers to Mississippi to help with rebuilding homes and lives after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster. PDA still has volunteers helping with Katrina recovery, although some of the camps are beginning to close, including the Pearlington Mississippi camp that FPC volunteers went to many times. The needs for rebuilding in Nashville are on a major scale and our volunteer leaders chose to come here this year – we are the second team to come to Nashville, following one that came the first week of January.
We are staying at Westminster Presbyterian Church (WPC) in Nashville - http://www.nashvillewpc.org/home.cfm. WPC has approximately 1,900 members. WPC had been sending groups of people four times a year to help rebuild homes impacted, but after the flood last May, WPC became a PDA site to help rebuild homes in Nashville. Also staying here this week at WPC and working on rebuilding for flood relief are four volunteers from Pennsylvania.
FPC/PDA volunteers have split up into two groups. One group is working on interior painting and staining a small three bedroom house which is at the bottom of a valley. Kia, the homeowner will move in soon with her husband and four daughters, aged 2, 8, 10, and 15. Another PDA team had installed woodwork and trim. Our team stained the woodwork and painted bedrooms. The family’s daughters had chosen the colors for each of their own bedrooms.
Our other FPC/PDA team worked on the first floor of a two story home which is the last home to be renovated on its street. The homeowners are Latrice and her aunt Elenore. We got to meet Latrice’s son and daughter on Tuesday when the Nashville closed schools for the fourth time this season due to a snow storm (it got all the way down to 30 degrees and the storm piled up to two inches of snow on the city). At this house we installed a bathtub enclosure, bathroom floor tile, repaired drywall, painted 3 rooms and stairwell, hung sliding closed doors, and cleaned windows (what a difference that made! There was still grime on the outside of the windows from the flood).
One of the best parts of our experience has been to meet the homeowners – both of our teams have found that we were helping wonderful families and our work has meant so much to them. We’re very pleased that both of these homes are very close to being completed and that the family’s lives can soon get back to normal.
We’ll be posting more stories and pictures about our trip in the next few days.
About the Flood:
Youtube video of the damage caused by the flood
Excerpts from Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tennessee_floods:
The May 2010 Tennessee floods were 1000-year[1] floods in Middle Tennessee, West Tennessee, South Central and Western Kentucky and northern Mississippi as the result of torrential rains on May 1 and 2, 2010. Floods from these rains affected the area for several days afterwards, resulting in 21 deaths in Tennessee, six people in northern Mississippi, and four deaths were reported in Kentucky. There was widespread property damage.[2]
Two-day rain totals in some areas were greater than 19 inches (49 cm).[3] The Cumberland River crested at 51.86 feet in Nashville, a level not seen since 1937, which was before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control measures were in place. All-time record crests were observed on the Cumberland River and others.
Flooding on the Cumberland River damaged the Grand Ole Opry House, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Opry Mills Mall, Bridgestone Arena[13] (home to NHL team Nashville Predators), and LP Field (home to NFL team Tennessee Titans) with several feet of water.[14] Grand Ole Opry performances were moved to other venues in the Nashville area.
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