NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A mother, father and child were killed when a tree fell on their car during heavy rain and flooding in Tennessee, where submerged roads also led to dramatic rescues of people trapped in their cars, authorities said Wednesday.
The three were killed when saturated ground caused a large tree to fall in the Chattanooga suburb of East Ridge just after midnight, Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Amy Maxwell said.
Additionally, authorities found a body Wednesday while searching for a man who was swept away when he ran past firefighters and a barricade blocking a flooded road Tuesday, according to the Chattanooga Fire Department. The local police and medical examiner will determine the cause of death.
The flooding prompted rescues of people stuck in homes and swamped vehicles.
At a news conference Wednesday, officials said they didn’t expect so much rain and flooding to hit so quickly.
At one point, there were 60 vehicles on the flooded interstate, said Chris Adams, director of emergency management for Hamilton County. Some first responders were carrying people on their backs who couldn’t move well through the water, and placed them on the raised highway divider, Adams added.
“We all know to ‘turn around, not drown,’ but when you look at it and it’s 2 inches deep, and then next thing you know it’s 4 feet deep, that’s something you’ve never seen before,” Adams said.
There were so many calls for help that 911 calls were “holding in every minute of every hour for about three hours straight,” with more than 940 calls between 6 p.m. and midnight, said Barbara Loveless, director of operations for Hamilton County 911.
Troy Plemons, a communications systems technician for EPB, Chattanooga’s electricity and telecommunications utility, said he was stuck in traffic on an interstate in his bucket truck for two to three hours Tuesday evening.
Then Plemons said he saw the flood water lift an SUV, and when he and two Lawson Electric workers encouraged a woman inside to get out, she threw up her hands because she didn’t know if she could. Plemons moved to the bed of a truck next to him to try to get closer, but the water was rising to her chest.
“I didn’t think there was any time,” he said. “I tried my best.”
Plemons said the water was reaching neck level for the woman in the SUV when he used a boring bit offered by the…