Obama has declared Nashville a natural disaster area, and TN still doesn't make national news.

Link for Report
(I hope I linked that correctly)

The Cumberland River crested Monday night and is expected to recede by the end of the week, according to the Nashville mayor's office.

The Cumberland flooded quickly after the weekend's storms dumped more than 13 inches of rain in Nashville over two days. That nearly doubled the previous record of 6.68 inches of rain that fell in the wake of Hurricane Fredrick in 1979.

About 56 Nashville schools were damaged by either water or wind from the storms.

The National Weather Service advised that major flooding is expected to continue along Cumberland River on Monday followed by a gradual decrease in water levels, and that homes in the area should be evacuated.

Most of lower Broadway, including First and Second avenues, were closed by floodwater Monday. The Schermerhorn Symphony Center and numerous buildings downtown near the Cumberland River had lower-level flooding.

Nashville's country music landmark The Grand Ole Opry House was also flooded.

Heartland Christian Towers residents were moved to hotels or picked up by family members. The retirement home is on Fernbrook Lane off McGavock Pike in Nashville.

Air 4 flew over a flooded home along Pennington Bend that was engulfed in flames Monday at 10:30 a.m.

"We are still in rescue mode at this time," said Kim Lawson, deputy chief of the Nashville Fire Department, during a Monday afternoon press conference.

More than 7 inches of rain fell on Saturday and 13.53 inches had fallen by 8:30 p.m. Sunday, a new two-day record. Just two days into the month, May 2010 was declared already the wettest May in Nashville's recorded history and the fifth wettest month in city history. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen called it an "unprecedented rain event."

Mayor Karl Dean’s office has asked Nashville residents to conserve water.

Parts of MetroCenter and residents and businesses near Mainstream Drive were evacuated.

The guests at Opryland Hotel on Sunday were moved to McGavock High School and other hotels. Gaylord Entertainment, the owners of the hotel, confirmed that there was 6 feet of standing water inside the hotel.

German tourists Gerdi and Kurt Bauerle, both 70, said resort staff suddenly started rushing people out of the area Sunday night.

"We had just finished eating and suddenly they said: 'Go! Go! Go!"' said Gerdi Bauerle, who was visiting from Munich. "And we said, 'Wait, we haven't even paid."'

Officials in Tennessee said Sunday the flooding is as bad as they've seen since 1975 when water memorably inundated the old Opryland amusement park east of downtown Nashville. Even the state's own emergency operations center wasn't immune. It took up to a foot of water below a false floor, forcing officials to relocate to an auxiliary command center.

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I only copy and pasted a small portion of the story. I was in Nashville when this all started. It was epic, in a very bad way (i.e. I personally saw a mobile home floating down the Cumberland). We got out Sunday before they closed ALL the highways down. But my point is that we have our own nice little natural disaster in the U.S. and we can't even make national news.

We did, however, make it into other countries' headlines. Just not our own. Video Link

Also, I heard we were on the Colbert Report, but I can't find the video.

I'm actually friends with someone who goes to APSU, she was talking to me about it a lot. She would send me links to videos and pictures. I kept waiting for it to make headlines, I was getting mad. She was literally trapped at school because the area surrounding the campus was flooded, so the APSU campus was an island. People in TN should be pissed. It is a failure for the national news media and a failure for politicians. Really disappointing. I was getting text updates from her talking about how horrible the flooding is, and I go to the news and they are talking about the big White House dinner.

Yeah, APSU campus had to be evacuated, but they let us back in on Wednesday. It is very upsetting that we still haven't gotten any national coverage. I fortunately live off campus, but I had a lot of friends on campus.

I was down there for MTAC (anime con) during the weekend it rained. Just buckets really... and then we were trapped in the hotel because the surrounding areas were flooded. I missed my first day back of class because we had to wait for a point where we could actually get on 65 again. I can't see my group of friends really appreciate people deciding it'd be fun to pull over and look at all of the flooded homes...seriously. We felt horrible for the Nashville folk. :/

We did get back though and people half-knew about the rains, mostly from students that live in the south coming back from spring break. My roommate was very surprised though; she reads the newspaper and saw NOTHING.

Hey, I was at MTAC too. My fiance is a geologist though and predicted the flooding. He's also studied the Nashville flood plain, so he knew how to get out of Nashville once some of the main roads were shut down. We left Sunday morning. Sorry you had to miss some school, but I'm glad you were safe.

FYI, I'm Bunny Bee. =3

See, we had been expecting some storms but I thought it was going to be in central-southern Indiana and Kentucky. I knew it was supposed to rain...just not to the point of seeing red all over the Doppler. Glad you guys got out quickly. We decided that if we were paying for an extra night we'd go to some of the Sunday events which turned out to be a good idea. Didn't run into many problems; one bit of road had some water standing along the side and we had to take a detour, but that was about it. Being down there made me miss Shoneys. Bit off topic but there you are; the waiter could tell we were yanks. ;D It was cute. Ahem.

I was looking on the forums looking at the wrap up comments and saw your posts. Ha! Hello. You may have seen a few of my friends there. I was crippled most of the time. :P

Yes, the amount of rain was highly unexpected. TN has really been taking care of its own though and giving donations of money and clothes and whatnot. I glad you got home safely.

It kind of reminds me of when the 35w bridge collapsed into the Mississippi. We got some coverage. It was on CNN for a bit. Then it's like the next day... no one even gave a rat's ass about it (except for myself and the rest of us Minnesotans). My parents (who live in Pennsylvania) said there was a little information on it, the day after it happened in the newspaper, but that was about it.

I mean, it was a big deal damnit! 13 people died and it crashed during rush hour traffic! It could have been so much worse. However, that doesn't mean it's not worthy of being covered. Obviously it was all over the paper and stuff out here but, ya know. I feel ya. It's like, until something super catastrophic where many people perish or something...it's not even worth mentioning, sad.

I agree. These kinds of things affect hundred or even thousands of people even when the death toll is low. But the fact that no one else outside of TN knows that there was massive flooding that left thousands of people out of their home, that means that no one outside of TN will give any relief or donation.

It is very sad, huh? I live in the Clarksville area and the destruction is just crazy. But I am here visiting my family in Georgia for the week and when I mentioned the flooding, most people are confused as to what I'm talking about. It's sad that it's not getting much coverage when something like this is going to affect so many people!

I knew about that only because I grew up in Wisconsin and travelled that bridge monthly :(