At least 22 dead, dozens missing in Tennessee flash floods

WAVERLY (Tennessee) • In one moment, Mr Rickey Larkin saw the creek running behind his home spill over its banks. The next, he said, he was engulfed by an ocean.

His truck was carried away by the currents. Then, the water surged into his home and rose shoulder high, forcing him, his wife and their cat to cling to a mattress as a life raft.

"We prayed and we prayed it would go down," Mr Larkin recalled a day later, sitting outside a shelter on Sunday.

At least 22 people have died and more than two dozen others were missing on Sunday after catastrophic flash floods swept through a rural area of rivers, creeks and rolling woods about 90 minutes west of Nashville, Tennessee, the authorities said.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said the state Emergency Operations Centre had been activated in Nashville to support water rescues and other urgent requests for help.

The floodwater vanished as quickly as it arrived, leaving in its wake a bewildering display of its fury and strength in rural communities in and around Humphreys County. Homes had been picked up off their piers and dropped across the street. Bridges and roads were crumbling. Cars were mangled and trucks had been turned upside down.

President Joe Biden said at a news conference on Sunday: "I want to begin by expressing my deepest condolences for the sudden and tragic loss of life due to this flash flood."

He added that he has encouraged federal emergency officials to coordinate with the state to "offer any assistance they need".

The surge of water came last Saturday morning as the creeks were overwhelmed by rain. The town of McEwen, which was among the harder-hit areas of Humphreys County, recorded 43cm of rainfall that day - a figure that, according to the National Weather Service, most likely set a statewide record for the most rainfall in a 24-hour span. The previous record was 34.5cm, set in 1982.

Separately, four people were killed and four others still missing after flash floods wiped out homes in western North Carolina in the wake of Tropical Depression Fred last week, the authorities said.

The search for victims of the flash flooding continued in Haywood County, according to an update on Saturday on the county's Facebook page. The remnants of the tropical depression brought more than 25cm of rain to the county last Tuesday.

NYTIMES