So, here's my story about the flood. Eric left with the girls that Friday afternoon to go to Rockport to visit his family. I was trying to finish up a project for preschool and needed the time alone to get it all done before Monday. It rained ALL day Friday. It wasn't just a light rain that stopped and started. It was a heavy, downpour kind of rain ALL. DAY. LONG. It never let up. It didn't really think anything of it except that Eric's garden was being drenched and I knew he wouldn't like that. Saturday night I was upstairs working away on my project while watching a movie at the same time. I was oblivious to what was going on. Eric called me around 8:30pm and asked me if our street was flooded. Flooded? What? Why would our street be flooded? He said I better go outside and check. As soon as I walked outside I was in shock. Everyone on my street was outside on their porch. Our street was flooded! It was basically filling up the street in front of our house at that time. It was getting close to peoples houses from my viewpoint though. People were trying to move their vehicles to higher ground up the street. Two guys that work with Eric in the streets department came walking up to me and said they told Eric they'd come check on me. They suggested I move my cars. I took the truck and Eric's work vehicle over to Joni's house. Eric had the van in Indiana. He really wanted to come home but there really wasn't anything he could have done. He decided to just come in the morning. So, everyone just stood outside staring at the water and over the course of an hour or so that I was outside it had visibly risen and was coming into the driveway now. By the time I got up the next morning it was halfway up the front yard. I basically just watched the news and kept going outside all day long. There were a ton of people coming to our street and the streets around us to take pictures. No one could believe this was happening. Eric got home around 1 or 2 that afternoon. He wanted to drive around town and take pictures for work reasons. So, we left and did that. When we got back around 4 or 5 the water was closer and actually reaching the house on one side. I convinced Eric to move stuff from downstairs to upstairs in case it came in the house. He never did think it would get in the house. I wasn't so sure. Mainly because I kept hearing that the river wouldn't crest until the next day and it was already to the house by that point. We do have a couple of feet of crawlspace under the house. So, we went to dinner and when we came back it had reached the front porch and the garage door. That really made me nervous. We decided we should stay at Joni's house in case we lost electricity. Plus, emergency management teams were boating people out of their houses on our street! There was a picture in the paper and a video on The Tennessean's website of a boat rescue and the boat floats right in front of our house! Fortunately we were able to walk in front of our house in rain boots if you stayed right up next to the house. We were the last house on the street to have water reach it.
The girls thought the whole thing was a big adventure. Grace would start to get nervous if she started to notice me getting stressed or nervous. I had to reassure her everything was fine and then she would be fine. They were just excited to spend the night at Reesi's house. They were just dying to play in the water too! We couldn't let me play in it though because it wasn't clean rain, it was river water with the possibility of sewer water too. It was torture to Lyla!!! Reesi was very concerned about the flowers in my front yard.
The next morning the water had already gone down and was completely out of our front yard! I was amazed that it went down that quickly. The gas and electricity had been shut off though. A house on the next street over but right across from us had blown up during the night and burned completely down. Evidently, a gas can in the garage tipped over when the water flooded their garage and the gas in the water reached the pilot light on their water heater and exploded. That's why the gas was turned off on the streets that were flooded.
We had to have our AC/furnace serviced and an air duct under the house replaced. We did find out today though that the gas lines and "smart valve" in the furnace have water in them and need to be replaced along with the "mother board". That alone will cost $700-$1000. That's a lot to us but it's nothing compared to what tons of other people lost.
Our next door neighbors had water all in their house. They're on a slab so they sit a lot lower to the ground than we do. They had to replace all of their floors, drywall, cabinets, and appliances. Others on our street were the same way. There were piles of insulation, air ducts, drywall, cabinets, furniture, carpet, etc. all up and down the streets. It was surreal to walk around and see everyone tearing apart their houses and just throwing it out to the street. Our homeowner's association was great though. They organized cookouts every night that week on our street and fed people from about 4 streets every night. They also got dumpsters brought to our street and dump trucks to come pick up trash every day.
Franklin was bad but Nashville and Bellevue had it even worse. House were completely covered in water. People lost their lives getting stuck in the water. People lost everything in their houses as well as their house. A trailer floated down the interstate for goodness sakes! It was unreal. The crazy thing is that most of these areas were not in a flood zone that required flood insurance. So, most people and businesses did not have insurance to cover these losses! FEMA is helping but I don't really know how much help they give.
Over the next week or two, help was everywhere. I saw church groups walk down our street and go from door to door offering to help clean up. I know our church organized work groups the whole next week to do the same thing. Joni got to go help during school hours a couple of days. We took the girls the next Saturday to deliver lunches to workers. We wanted to help but with little kids that's about all we could do.
We were very blessed to not have more damage than we did. I actually felt guilty that we didn't have more damage. It was crazy and a once in a lifetime event.
Here are a lot of pictures. I'll write above the picture to tell what it is. They're out of chronological order. I'm too tired to try to rearrange them all.
This is my house on Sunday afternoon when Eric got home from Indiana around 1 or 2 pm.
This is the intersection where you turn onto my street.
This is standing in front of my house looking down the street. The first mailbox you see is my neighbor.
This is around 5pm Sunday evening. It had reached the front steps and garage door. The girls were leaning over looking at the flowers under the water.
This is the blue explorer of friends from our church that live down the street from us. They are across the street and two doors down. The insurance company totaled this vehicle.
This white fence runs behind our house. Our house backs up to a street. This wasn't directly behind our house but not too far.
This is looking down the same road. Notice the top of the car in the distance.
The girls running to the edge of the water.
Like I said, it was just a big adventure to them!
This is two doors down from us. The first mailbox in the picture that you can see the 103 on is our mailbox.
Same shot. 
This was the next day.
These are the softball fields Eric plays softball on. The building in the distance is the concession stand. It was halfway under water. All of the fences were completely under water and the dugout benches were too. The city is having to replace all of the fences so the softball season has been cancelled.
Just a random intersection in Franklin.
Another intersection. Notice the car top sticking up in the distance.
This is the park. You can see any park equipment!
This is taken from my front porch looking at the house across the street. It flooded their garage and crawlspace but didn't damage the floors of the house.
The girls on the front porch steps. 
I took this from the front porch looking down into the water.
This is our mailbox late in the evening on Sunday. That's about as deep as it got.
This is looking from the porch to the driveway. I was trying to show that it was all the way to the garage door.
The next morning!
This picture shows the water line on this house.
This picture shows how deep it got on this house too.
This is the poor house that caught on fire. The saddest part of this to me is that they left their house that night not expected to loose it all in a fire. They were only thinking of the water that might flood the downstairs. So they just moved everything upstairs. Plus, they weren't home to try to save anything when the fire started. So, all of their special pictures and things are gone. 
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