Gaylord: 80 Percent of Those Laid Off After Flood Returning Now

Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel reopened today, more than six months after suffering extensive flood damage.

A month after the flood, Gaylord laid off some 17 hundred workers, and now it says about 80 percent of them are coming back. Among those returning is waitress Shannon Poncé, who used the last few months to spend more time with her daughter.

“I stayed at home, as a stay-at-home mother, and I’m really excited to be back, because I definitely wasn’t cut out for that. Unemployment was really weird. It was really disorganized here. Everybody was kinda taking it as it came and flying by the seat of their pants, and we’re still getting back in the groove, but it’s coming, it’s coming together.”

Renovating the hotel cost roughly $185 million, though that includes about $30 million toward improvements unrelated to the flood. Those upgrades actually mean Gaylord’s total workforce is now bigger than before the flood.

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Nashville Mayor Karl Dean called the reopening “profound,” because the hotel is a major economic engine for the city. He says the news “represents a huge step” in the city’s flood recovery.