At least 10 people were killed and about 40 others were missing Saturday after catastrophic flash floods swept through Central Tennessee, authorities said.
Rob Edwards, chief deputy of the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office, said authorities were doing house-to-house checks in the hardest-hit areas in Humphreys, a rural county of about 18,500, roughly 72 miles west of Nashville.
There were “power outages all over the area,” Edwards said in an email. “Complicating issues is the loss of all cellphone coverage from the major carriers,” he added.
Portable communication units were being brought in to help restore service, he said. “We have lost a lot of roads, both rural and major highways,” he said. “In my 28 years, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it.”
The devastation came after an estimated 8-10 inches of rain inundated Dickson, Hickman, Houston and Humphreys counties, the National Weather Service said Saturday morning. By Saturday night, officials were reporting that some areas had gotten more than a foot of rain.
In McEwen, a small community in Humphreys County, just over 17 inches of rain had fallen, setting a new 24-hour rainfall record for the region, the weather service said. Local news channels showed floodwaters submerging houses nearly to their roofs.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said that the state Emergency Operations Center had been activated in Nashville to support water rescues and other urgent requests for help from local officials.
“Our first priority is to assist with getting responders access to the area and conduct rescue operations,” Maj. Gen. Jeff Holmes, adjutant general of the Tennessee National Guard, wrote on Twitter.
At least 4,200 people across the state had lost power, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. It said that flooding in the affected counties was “dangerous and evolving,” and it urged residents to stay off the roads.
The Meriwether Lewis Electric Cooperative said it could take several days to restore service to the area. The utility said that its office in Humphreys County had flooded, and that trucks and equipment had been damaged.
Waverly Elementary School in Waverly, the Humphreys County seat, was “completely flooded,” with water “4 feet deep in the entire school,” according to its Facebook page.