CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A mother, father and child were killed when a tree fell on their car during heavy rain and flooding in Tennessee, an official said Wednesday.
The three were killed when saturated ground caused a large tree to fall in the Chattanooga suburb of East Ridge just after midnight, Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Amy Maxwell said.
A search was also ongoing Wednesday for a man who walked through a flooded road in Chattanooga on Tuesday night but hadn’t been seen since, Maxwell said.
The full extent of the damage isn’t yet known. County officials planned to tour the damage Wednesday morning, Maxwell said.
The flooding prompted rescues of people stuck in homes and swamped vehicles on Tuesday, and the region was bracing for more rainfall and flooding Wednesday. Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp declared a local state of emergency Tuesday night. Residents were urged to exercise extreme caution.
Troy Plemons, a communications systems technician for EPB, Chattanooga’s electricity and telecommunications utility, said he was stuck in traffic on an interstate in his bucket truck for two to three hours on Tuesday evening when the area started to flood quickly.
Then Plemons said he saw the water pick up an SUV, and when he and two Lawson Electric workers encouraged a woman inside to get out, she threw up her hands like she didn’t know if she could. Plemons moved to the bed of a truck next to him to try to get closer to the woman, but the water was getting up to her chest and he said he realized someone was going to have to go in to get her.
“I didn’t think there was any time,” he said. “I tried my best.”
Plemons said the water was reaching neck level for the woman in the SUV when he used a boring bit offered by the Lawson Electric workers to break the window and helped the woman get out.
“It was a rush for sure. I felt like I was pretty calm until I broke the window,” Plemons said. “I was doing everything I could to get her out because the water was rising pretty quick.”
He helped the woman to the road and she sat down in his vehicle to warm up for a while. There were several rescues of people whose cars were overwhelmed by water in the area until the water receded about two to three hours later and traffic began to move again, Plemons said.
“I felt like I was there at the right time,” he said. “I’m thankful I was there to help that lady.”
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of middle Tennessee through Wednesday night, warning of scattered flash flooding with tropical-like heavy rainfall and the possibility of training storms, especially over already saturated areas.
The airport in Chattanooga recorded more than 6.4 inches (about 16 centimeters) of rain Tuesday, marking the second-wettest day recorded for the city dating back to 1879, according to a social media post by the National Weather Service in Morristown. The highest single-day total was nearly 9.5 inches (24 centimeters) in September 2011 from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, the weather service said.
Chattanooga Fire crews rescued people trapped in vehicles and residents stuck in their homes, fire department officials said. Flooding closed parts of Interstate 24 in the area, but it reopened once floodwaters receded.
Swiftwater rescue teams rescued residents of three East Ridge homes trapped by rising floodwaters, according to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Austin Garrett said the flooding was more extensive than he had seen before, noting that it is usually concentrated in one area, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
“This is extremely widespread. It made it difficult for us to even get here ourselves to try to help other people,” he said. “So no, I’ve never seen it to this extent, this widespread in so many areas and impacting travel the way it is.”
