Catastrophic flooding in Middle Tennessee left at least ten people dead and dozens missing on Saturday as record rainfall ravaged homes and rural roads, authorities said.
The owner of the business, Kansas Klein, watched in horror from a bridge on Saturday morning as cars and entire homes were swept away by a road in Waverly, a town of about 4,500 people that Klein, 48, he has called home for more than half of his life. Two girls clinging to a puppy and clinging to a wooden table passed over it, too quickly for Klein and other spectators to come down and grab them.
After authorities told them to go back, Klein returned a couple of hours later, surprised that the waters of the flood had receded almost completely and were dismayed by the destruction left behind.
“It was amazing how quickly he came out and how quickly he came out,” Klein said.
Klein said his restaurant, a ten-year-old New York-style pizzeria, was still standing, but the morning flood of 25 to 30 inches of rain in Humphreys County had caused floodwaters to arrive. at 2.1 meters) inside the restaurant, which means a total loss.
After leaving his restaurant, Klein headed to nearby public housing and heard screams. A man had just recovered the body of a baby from one of the houses. Other bodies would soon follow.
“I’m looking at my restaurant, thinking it was horrible that I lost my restaurant and then I go around the corner and see someone’s baby dead: my restaurant doesn’t mean much,” Klein told the Associated Press. in a phone interview Saturday night, still in shock while watching aerial footage from a local news channel he had recorded on his phone hours ago.
Low-income homes, dozens of block buildings known as Brookside, appeared to have borne the brunt of the fulminating flood, Klein said.
“It was devastating: the buildings were demolished, half of them were destroyed,” Klein said. “People were removing bodies from people who had drowned and didn’t get out.”
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told the media that more than 30 people have been missing. It was not immediately known how many had lived in Brookside, located about 96 miles west of Nashville.
Two of the recovered bodies were young children who had been wiped out by their father, Davis told WSMV-TV.
Waverly’s partner, Cindy Dunn, 48, and her husband Jimmy, 49, were rescued from their attic by a crew who used an excavator to get there.
“Hell. That’s why we had to go through,” Cindy Dunn told The Tennessean.
She said her husband woke her up on Saturday, telling her the floods had pushed her car into the back garden. Eventually, the water in their house rose to at least 1.8 meters in height, forcing them into the attic. Dunn said the roof was not an option.
“My husband has cancer. She goes through chemotherapy. And I am amputated. So there was no other place but the attic, ”Dunn said.
Dunn said his home and neighboring homes “have disappeared.”
Just east of Waverly, the town of McEwen was engulfed in 43 inches of rain in less than a day, causing water rescues, road closures and communications disruptions. That total rainfall destroyed the state’s 24.5-hour record of 34.6 inches from 1982, according to the Nashville National Weather Service, though Saturday’s figures should be confirmed.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee tweeted Saturday: “Tennesseans, please beware of the flood surge caused by heavy rainfall in parts of Middle TN. We are actively working with care officials.” emergency and first aid, as they support Tennessee in flooded areas. ”
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency activated its emergency operations center and said agencies including the Tennessee National Guard, state highway patrol and mutual aid are on fire. respond to flooding. In a bulletin, TEMA described the situation as “dangerous and evolving” and urged people to avoid travel to the affected counties.
Klein is unsure of the future of his family or city.
He also doesn’t know what happened to the two girls and the puppy he witnessed clinging to the blackboard. He learned that a girl and a puppy had been rescued downstream and that the other girl was also saved, but he wasn’t sure it was them.
“This is the third hundred-hundred-year flood we’ve had in about ten years,” he said, referring to the 2010 and 2019 floods. “But that’s 100 times worse than none of them …. The latest report what I saw was that they were missing 31. This is a small town, so I probably know most of these people ”.
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Rico reported from Atlanta.