The 2010 Flood: Middle Tennesseans Pull Together To Come To Each Other’s Aid

The 2010 flood is often remembered as a time of unity in Middle Tennessee.

Neighbors warning neighbors of the danger. Passers-by plucking strangers from the waters. Volunteers distributing food and donations.

Thelma Sanders-Hunter was one of the people who benefited from the generosity. She lost her home in the Bordeaux neighborhood to the floodwaters on the weekend of May 1, 2010.

A few months later, she told an oral historian with the Nashville Public Library how people came to her aid.

More: Nashville Public Library’s Flood 2010 Collection

“The outpouring of concern and love is just overwhelming,” she said. “That’s the only way that I can really describe it. … Not only neighbors who came to our rescue by banging on the door that particular morning, but my colleagues, after the water had receded, came by to help me collect and salvage things that I could possibly use, like my china (and) silverware. They came, they cleaned those things up, packed them up for me.”

Sanders-Hunter also received help from the North Nashville Flood Recovery Office and the McGruder Family Resource Center. They helped her replace furniture, bedding and basic furnishing. Her religious community also helped.

“They did quite a bit of work, tearing out the floor and tearing out the walls, doing the duct work, installing the new AC unit,” she said. “I can’t again describe the feeling I have.”

And sometimes, help just came from strangers.

“We were there working at the house and the yard. And strangers just drove up and said, ‘You want some food? We have sandwiches, we have beverages, we have cookies, desserts. And, here, we want to share with you.’

“So it was like you said, you know, just people saw that we were in need or were in distress and they came to our aid.

“It reminds me so much of the account in the Bible about the good Samaritan, who stopped on the roadside to help this man who had been robbed and beaten. They had nothing really in common. But he saw that there was an individual who was in need, and he carried him to what we would call a hotel or a motel and asked the innkeeper to look after him. And even paid for the injured man’s upkeep, you know, and his treatments.

And so the bottom line is that I feel indebted to those individuals who, came to my rescue. And people, they didn’t see black. They didn’t see white. They didn’t see gray. They saw individuals who had gone through a disastrous time, a turbulent time, and they came to our rescue.”