North Nashville flood recovery lags: witness a "ghost town" neighborhood

Like in just about every other way, North Nashville is left behind in flood recovery as we near the 1st anniversary of the Great Nashville Flood. A story of suburban West Hamilton Drive from WPLN:

The retired firefighter has done everything he can to bring his own property back to normalcy, but the view from his front stoop is still much like it was in the weeks after the flood. “So what you do,” he says, “you just try to like–you see it but you don’t see it. You just kind of block it out your mind.”

“Some of the feelings that are brought up when you look out at a neighborhood that you truly cherish and see it’s not what it once was, that sense of loss can be reinforced.”

Photo credit: Cedric Smith

Brandon Hulette works for the United Methodist church, helping flood victims fix up their homes and rebuild their lives. Hulette says you can’t recover fully until your neighborhood does.

For background of the May 2010 flood's impact on the Bordeaux neighborhood jump back and see Betsy Phillips' personal account:

we found a neighbor's house in the road at the corner of Buena Vista and Hummingbird. Not a mobile home, an honest-to-god house that moved off its foundation and on down the street.

People were out. Some were milling around, checking in with each other. Others were already setting furniture out in the yard to dry out. The front yards on West Hamilton are full of other people's garbage, some of it probably mine.

Tucker Road doesn't go across Whites Creek anymore. At least, not for a while.