NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Young children played on the playground at England Park Friday night. Five years ago that park did not exist in the West Nashville neighborhood.
The land where the park sits on Delray Drive once had several dozens homes on it. They were purchased during the city's flood buyout program.
"There were nice houses down here, people lived on this street. People lived in this park, on this road right here," explained resident Shari Sewell.
The area along Richland Creek now has a walking trail, picnic tables, a playground and new trees. Everyone on the creek side of Delray Avenue took part in the buyout program.
"I don't know if they got a good deal out of them, or not, but it was nice for the neighborhood. We've got a nice park for the kids to come and play in, a nice park for us to walk in and it's a beautiful place," Sewell said.
The park is named after Andrew and Martha England. They were longtime residents of Delray Drive and died during the flood on May 2nd.
Nashville learned a lot from the 2010 flood. Dodd Galbreath leads Lipscomb University's Institute for Sustainable Practice.
He said there is nothing Nashville could have done five years ago that would have ever prepared the city for the flood.
"There's nothing we can do about natural events, that come at us that large," Galbreath explained.
He said there is not such thing as flood control, you can only help to manage flood waters. According to Galbreath, there are things individual property owners can do to help mitigate any future floods.
"Optimizing the landscape's ability to soak the water up, rather than to run it off," Galbreath said. "So by the time you add up all these sponges, you end up with a minimized flood."
He said those types of building practices most likely would need to be required by code if they have a chance of being effective.
"To make it easy to do this, to make it convenient and encourage developers to do it," said Galbreath.
More than 530 structures damaged during Nashville's flood were within the flood way. Another 2,500 damaged structures were outside that flood way.
