A mother, father and child were killed in Tennessee when a tree fell on their car overnight as heavy rain and flash flooding lashed the state.
The three died when saturated ground caused the tree to topple in Chattanooga just after midnight, local officials said.
Meanwhile, a search was also underway early Wednesday for a man who hasn’t been seen since he was spotted walking through a flooded street during the wild storms.
The full extent of the storm’s damage wasn’t immediately clear but crews were planning to inspect early Wednesday.
“I’ve seen flooding throughout my career all over the county,” Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett said in the aftermath, adding that it’s “typically concentrated in one area.”
“This is extremely widespread. It made it difficult for us to even get here ourselves to try to help other people,” he continued.
“I’ve never seen it to this extent, this widespread in so many areas and impacting travel the way it is.”
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp had declared a local state of emergency late Tuesday as the fierce weather approached – with residents urged to exercise extreme caution.
Still, scores of people had to be rescued from their swamped vehicles as severe flooding shut down parts of Interstate 24.
Rescue teams also had to help retrieve residents trapped in their homes by rising floodwaters.
“We have a lot of trees down. We have a lot of power lines down. We have a lot of homes that are flooded in the East Ridge area,” Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Amy Maxwell said late Tuesday.
“We continue to get numerous rescue efforts of people driving through flooded streets and obviously getting stuck, so we have to send swift water rescue teams in to rescue them and leave their cars stranded for right now, so we’re not seeing so much of the flash flooding receding yet. So right now we continue to do rescue operations.”
Meanwhile, the region was bracing for more severe weather Wednesday.
The National Weather Service has already issued a flood watch for much of middle Tennessee through Wednesday night, warning that scattered flash flooding with tropical-like heavy rainfall would be possible.
With Post wires
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