Saturday’s flooding took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving people uncertain about whether family and friends survived the unprecedented deluge, with rainfall that more than tripled what forecasters had expected. Kristi Brown, Humphreys County Schools’ coordinator for safety and health, stated that emergency workers were looking for shelters from door to door.
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis confirmed that 22 people died in his county. The names of the missing were on a board in the county’s emergency center and listed on a city of Waverly Facebook page.
“I would expect that, given the number fatalities, we’re going see mostly recovery efforts rather than rescue efforts at this stage,” Tennessee Emergency Management Director Patrick Sheehan stated.
Humphreys County Sheriff Office’s Facebook page was filled with people searching for missing friends. Seven-month-old twins were rescued from their father’s arms by GoFundMe as they attempted to flee.
According to survivors and Loretta Lynn’s ranch foreman, twin babies were taken from their father’s arms. He said that he had lost one of his closest friends, the sheriff of the county with 18,000 residents located 60 miles (96 km) west of Nashville.
The National Weather Service reported that Humphreys County received up to 17 inches (43 cmimeters) of rainfall in 24 hours. This broke the Tennessee record for one day rainfall by more than 3 in (8 centimeters).
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Just to the east of Waverly, the town of McEwen was pummeled Saturday with 17.02 inches (43.2 centimeters) of rain, smashing the state’s 24-hour record of 13.6 inches (34.5 centimeters) from 1982, according to the National Weather Service in Nashville, though Saturday’s numbers would have to be confirmed.
A flash flood watch was issued for the area before the rain started, with forecasters saying 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of rain was possible. Krissy Hurley, a Nashville weather service meteorologist, stated that the worst storm to hit this region of Middle Tennessee was only 9 inches (23 cmimeters) in rain.
Hurley stated, “Forecasting almost any record is something that we don’t often do.” “Double what we’ve seen was almost unfathomable.”
