At least 10 people have died and dozens are missing after flooding in Tennessee

Rescue teams in the United States are desperately searching this Sunday among broken homes and debris for Dozens of people missing after unprecedented rains that caused flooding in central Tennessee.

At least 10 people died, including twins who were snatched from their father’s arms, according to the surviving relatives. Authorities fear the death toll will rise.

Flooding in rural areas destroyed roads, cell phone towers and phone lines, leaving families unsure whether their loved ones survived the flood. Rescuers are going door-to-door, said Kristi Brown, supervisor health and safety coordinator for Humphreys County schools.

Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said many of the missing live in neighborhoods where the water has risen the fastest.

Up to 17 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours on Saturday, apparently breaking Tennessee’s record for one-day precipitation of more than 3 inches, the National Weather Service said.

Storm lines moved over the region for hours, generating a record amount of moisture, a scenario that scientists say may be more common due to global warming.

The downpours quickly turned the streams that flowed behind the backyards and through downtown Waverly into raging rapids.. A witness saw two girls holding a puppy and clinging to a plank of wood, the current being too fast for anyone to catch them.

I don’t know what happened to them. The man heard that a girl and a cub had been rescued downstream, and another girl had also been rescued, but he wasn’t sure it was them.

For Sunday, the floodwaters were gone, leaving wreckage of wrecked cars, demolished businesses and homes and a chaotic, tangled mix of things inside.

“It was amazing how fast it came and how fast it went,” said a local resident.

The Humphrey County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page was filled with people searching for missing family and friends. The GoFundMe Pages were created to ask for help with the funeral costs of the dead, including 7-month-old twins who were torn from their father’s arms as they tried to escape.

Not far from the bridge, dozens of buildings in a social housing district known as Brookside appeared to have been hit hard by the flash flood.

“It was devastating: the buildings were demolished, half of them were destroyed,” said a local resident. “People took out the bodies of people who had drowned and couldn’t get out”.

Davis told media on Saturday the 10 confirmed deaths and more than 30 missing in his county, located about 60 miles west of Nashville.

The dead ranged from infants to the elderly and included one of his best friends, the 18,000-person county sheriff told WSVM-TV on Sunday.

“Small town, small community. We know each other. We love ourselvesDavis said.

Just east of Waverly, the town of McEwen was hit by 17 inches of rain on Saturday, breaking the 1982 24-hour state record of 13 inches, according to the Nashville National Weather Service.

A flash flood watch was issued for the area before the onset of rain, and forecasters said 10 to 15 centimeters of rain was possible. Worst storm on record in this area of ​​central Tennessee dropped just 23 inches of rainsaid Krissy Hurley, a meteorologist with the Nashville Weather Service.

“Predicting close to a record is something we don’t do very often,” said Hurley. “Double the amount we had seen was almost unfathomable.”

Recent scientific research has determined that extreme rains will be more frequent due to man-made climate change. Hurley dijo que es imposible saber su papel exacto en la inundación del sábado, pero señaló que el año pasado su oficina se ocupó de las inundaciones que solían esperarse tal vez una vez cada 100 años en septiembre al sur de Nashville y en marzoa de más cercina the city.

“We had an incredible amount of water in the atmosphere,” Hurley said of Saturday’s flooding. “The thunderstorms developed and passed through the same area over and over again.”

The problem is not confined to Tennessee. A federal study found that human-caused climate change is doubling the chances of the types of heavy downpours that dumped 26 inches of rain around Baton Rouge, Louisiana in August 2016.. These floods killed at least 13 people and damaged 150,000 homes.

(With AP information)

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