BELFIGLIO: And then I heard noises downstairs in my condo and it sounded like somebody was trying to break in. So I went down -don’t ask me why I did that – but I went down and there was two feet of water in my condo at that point. And things were floating around and they were hitting each other and that’s what I had heard upstairs. So I spent the next hour and a half taking things like photo albums, art work, one piece of furniture upstairs. I didn’t know how far the flooding would go but I guess I was just taking a chance that if I put them on the second floor they would be safe. So that’s how, so I lost most everything on the first floor except those things that I saved. And after an hour and a half the water was at that point about four feet. And I knew I had to get out of there. I had noticed while I was going up and down the stairs that there was a young man with a motor boat running up and down our street like it was a river. And so I opened the window and called for him to come and get me and he said that I would be the next person he would rescue. So I got out of there. Hours later when people called me they said were you scared and I was so pumped up with adrenalin trying to rescue things that I really didn’t think about it being dangerous. I also knew I had an escape because I could see this young man going up and down the street rescuing people. I’v never, I thanked him of course when he did rescue me, but you know I don’t even know who it is that rescued me and I will be eternally grateful that these young men, there were several of them, were doing this thing -on their own-as far as I could see.
PILCHER: Where did you go after you were rescued?
BELFIGLIO: They first took us to a clubhouse in River Plantation. I think it was section 2. It was across the road. And we were then bussed out, church buses came and picked us up and they took us first to Publix where we picked up water and then they took us to the Jewish Community Center where we spent the night.
PILCHER: Can you describe what that was like?
BELFIGLIO: Well it kinda, you know I had seen pictures of New Orleans and I thought ‘Oh my Lord, we’re living this all over again only it’s in Nashville’. It was cot after cot of people and they had just loads of people from all over the city who were bringing food in. Some of them were restaurants who had not opened and they had food and they wanted somebody to use it. Sometimes it was church members. They were also bringing things like toothbrushes and soap. They were bringing clothes and shoes, all sorts of things for people to use that had left their home without anything.
Excerpted from: Barbara Belfiglio Oral History Interview. Born-digital recording(s) converted to mp3 format for online access in 2012 from 16bit 44.1khz WAV file archival master recording.
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