- Some residents were reportedly trapped in their homes with water up to their necks.
- Hundreds of houses can be uninhabitable,
- The floods destroyed roads, cell phone towers and telephone lines.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee – At least 22 people have died and about 20 are still missing on Sunday afternoon after record rains triggered flooding in parts of the state.
Among those killed were baby twins who were torn from their father’s arms, according to relatives who survived.
Gray Collier, chief information officer for the Humphreys County Emergency Management Agency, said hundreds of homes could be uninhabitable. The floods destroyed roads, cell phone towers and telephone lines.
The hardest-hit areas have seen double the rainfall that the Middle Tennessee region had in the previous worst-case flood event, meteorologists said.
Kansas Klein, a business owner in the town of Waverly, told The Associated Press that a low-income residential area known as Brookside was badly damaged by flooding.
“It was devastating: buildings were knocked down, half of them were destroyed,” Klein said. “People were removing the bodies of people who had drowned and did not get out.”
Among the dead:Loretta Lynn is heartbroken after longtime ranch foreman Wayne Spears dies amid flooding in Tennessee
Governor Bill Lee and U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty arrived in the county by helicopter on Sunday to assess the damage.
“God damn it,” Lee said on a drive as he saw houses ripped from their foundations and moved into neighbors’ gardens.
In McEwen, Tennessee, 60 miles west of Nashville, a record 17 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours. The town of Waverly, about 10 miles to the west, saw about 15 inches, turning the streams that run behind backyards and through downtown into raging rapids.
“I thought I was going to drown with my baby”
Survival stories emerged on Sunday as the number of missing climbed from a high of around 50.
Cindy and Jimmy Dunn fled to their attic on Saturday after the water rose 6 feet high in their Waverly home. They were rescued several hours later when a crew driving a bulldozer lifted a bucket to their window.
“My husband said one minute he was watching the news on TV, and the next minute we didn’t have a garage,” said Cindy Dunn, 48.
Anthony Yates, 30, left his home on Saturday morning for his shift at Waffle House. At 5:15 am, heavy drops of rain were just starting to fall on Waverly. Four hours later, his wife, Vanessa, and their baby were in danger.
Vanessa Yates, 28, put her baby, Coralai, on a kitchen cabinet as the water rose in their home. She was standing on the counter, but it wasn’t long before the water reached her ankles. She punched the kitchen window, hoping that if they were rescued they would escape easily.
“I thought I was going to drown with my baby,” she said. “I did not know what to do.”
As the 4-month-old girl cried, the mother sang a song she recited throughout her pregnancy, “Where Are You Going Little Bird”. Vanessa Yates’ brother kayaked to her rescue and reported a boat along the way. She and Coralai escaped unscathed.
But she didn’t know where her husband was or if he was alive. A power failure due to the storm made it difficult to receive cell phones.
As Anthony Yates left Waffle House, every road he took in Waverly was blocked, flooded, or washed away. He abandoned his vehicle and walked home over the train tracks, unaware that his family had already been evacuated. When he arrived he found their dog Lily, who had clung to a floating sofa.
About a quarter of annual precipitation in a morning
Eight to 15 inches of rain fell in Houston, Humphreys, Dickson and Hickman counties, according to the National Weather Service.
National Weather Service meteorologist Krissy Hurley said the area received “about 20-25% of the total annual precipitation this region experiences in a year” on Saturday morning.
Klein watched from a bridge on Saturday morning as houses and cars swept across a road. Two girls who were gripping a puppy and hanging onto a plank of wood walked past, far too fast for Klein and other onlookers to get to safety.
Hours later, the floodwaters were gone, but the destruction was overwhelming, Klein said.
“It was amazing how far it came and how quickly it went,” Klein said. “I think how horrible it was to lose my restaurant. And then I walk around the corner and see someone’s baby dead. My restaurant doesn’t mean much at the moment.
“I have never seen anything so devastating”: At least 2 dead, 17 missing in flooded North Carolina County by Fred
In Haywood County, North Carolina, the death toll rose to four as a result of flooding from Tropical Storm Fred last week after two bodies were recovered on Saturday. Heavy equipment crews intervened to clean up the debris, authorities said.
“We have completely destroyed homes with no foundations, mobile homes that have been moved and mobile home parks that I would call completely destroyed,” Sheriff Greg Christopher said.
Contributions: Keith Sharon, Brinley Hineman, Cassandra Stephenson, Yue Stella Yu and Chris Gadd, Tennessee; The Associated Press
