Massive Flooding In Tennessee

[TruthBringer]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – – 8 mins ago

About 1,500 guests of a downtown hotel complex spent the night in a high school to escape the flooding Cumberland River, which was expected to crest early Monday following weekend thunderstorms that killed at least 17 people in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

Officials in Tennessee were preparing for more deaths and for the Cumberland River, which winds through the Music City, to crest more than 11 feet, putting portions of downtown in danger of the kind of damage experienced by thousands of residents whose homes were swamped by flash floods.

Authorities weren't taking any chances. They evacuated the downtown area and north Nashville where a leaky levee threatened residents and businesses. Flooding could hit the downtown tourism industry, a commuter train depot and the nearby LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen called it an "unprecedented rain event," but that failed to capture the magnitude. More than 13 inches of rain fell in Nashville over two days, nearly doubling the previous record of 6.68 inches that fell in the wake of Hurricane Fredrick in 1979.

"That is an astonishing amount of rain in a 24- or 36-hour period," Bredesen said Sunday.

Flooding and damage was so widespread in Tennessee that Bredesen asked the state's Army National Guard to help and dozens of vehicles and personnel were put to work rescuing stranded residents. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean reported more than 1,000 water rescues in the city alone, including that of a policeman who became trapped and clung to a tree for an hour before firefighters plucked him from the flood waters.

Officials in Tennessee said Sunday the flooding is as bad as they've seen since 1975 when water memorably inundated the old Opryland amusement park east of downtown Nashville. Even the state's own emergency operations center wasn't immune. It took up to a foot of water below a false floor, forcing officials to relocate to an auxiliary command center.

"I've never seen it this high," said emergency official Donnie Smith, who's lived in Nashville 45 years. "I'm sure that it's rained this hard at one time, but never for this much of an extended period."

Tenn. officials brace for more flooding, deaths - Yahoo! News