water per second was being released from Old Hickory Dam. “And the NationalWeather Service got no other notification of any more changes until five or six on Sunday evening,” Reed said.“What happened was, during the course of Sunday after- noon, the Army Corps of Engineers increased thewater releases fromOld Hickory Dam 13 times and didn’t tell anybody. And during a four-hour timeframe, they went from releasing 20,000 gallons per second into the pool of Nashville to 220,000 gallons per second—and effectively had OldHickoryDamwide open.” The Army Corps of Engineers has defended its actions, say-

ing that the damwould have been lost otherwise, but Reed con- tends that the Corps should have released water throughout

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, when it had knowledge that Nashville would be experiencing a huge weather event.“And we’re of the opinion that had they communicated more effec- tively to the NationalWeather Service, we’d have been able to save millions of dollars worth of equipment and we would have been able to make the evacuation process a lot more efficient and comfortable for our customers,” Reed said.“Obviously, we’re going to have our say with the Corps of Engineers.We’re angry about what happened.We think it wasn’t well done.And other people in this community feel the same way.” Stronger than the anger, though, is another realization.“We could have lost people that night if we hadn’t done what we