At least four people have died after heavy rainfall caused flash flooding in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. The rain also shut down several highways and forced hundreds of Swiftwater rescues.
Deadly flooding
A family of two adults and a child died when a tree fell on their car Wednesday morning. Another person died after being swept away by floodwaters.
“We’ve had flash floods in the past, but nothing, nothing to this extreme that happened yesterday,” Chief Terry Knowles of the Chattanooga Fire Dept. told Straight Arrow News.
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The Chattanooga airport recorded more than six inches of rain in just one day, the second most ever since tracking began in 1879. The only day with larger rainfall was when the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee moved through in 2011.
“There’s no way to prepare for that,” Knowles said.
No other people have been reported missing at this point.
Road issues
The flooding temporarily caused I-24 to be shut down in both directions in the area, but it has since been reopened.
“It looks like a body of water, not an interstate,” Knowles said. “It was scary for people, it was very concerning for us, because we knew the amount of cars that we were going to have in it and the people in those cars.”
Swiftwater rescues
A picture posted by the department shows a rescue team pulling six people out of a van in flooded waters late Tuesday night.
Chief Knowles told SAN that those teams got approximately 100 calls for emergency water incidents throughout the county and more than 50 in the city of Chattanooga.
“Our crews go through training about how to deal with flood waters, and then also flooding with areas in swift water,” Knowles said. “We’re prepared. Not only in the city, but the county, the other agencies.”
Working together
The department collaborated with police, the Department of Emergency Management and other state agencies to ensure the community’s safety in the treacherous conditions.
“We’re one team when it comes down to disasters or emergency incidents,” Knowles said. “Director [Chris] Adams [of the Office of Emergency Management] said in the last press conference, we leave the egos at the door. We’re working together as one, and it showed yesterday, just like it shows with anything else that we do in the city, in the county.”
Knowles also said he’s been in touch with state officials from the Tennessee Office of Emergency Management (TEMA) and that FEMA will also be involved in some of the recovery efforts.
The Mayor also declared a state of emergency.
For now, the road to recovery continues.
“We will be conducting post-incident reviews, and that way, we can learn from this,” Knowles said. “We can see what worked really well, what we can build on and what we can do differently. An important thing is to learn what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do better that way. Hopefully, this never happens again, but we know that it’s going to sometime, or incidents like this will happen. And so just being ready and being prepared to handle it efficiently and as quick as possible is very important for us.”
