Soggy Thursday
Cars make their way through floodwater on 23rd Street on Thursday after heavy rains moved through the Chattanooga area. Hamilton County Schools will be on a two-hour delay this morning because of continued potential for flooding overnight. School Age Child Care will be closed in the morning but will operate on regular schedule in the afternoon. A story and more photos are on
Waves of heavy rains washed away cars, blocked streets and flooded into parks and parking lots Thursday in many areas around Chattanooga.
Derek Eisentrout, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the Chattanooga Airport reported an inch of rain on the ground over a 23- minute period at the storm’s peak earlier Thursday, and 2.4 inches over a three- hour period.
In Brainerd, Flintstones cars and basketball goals from Kandy Kastle Day Care were washed away as Brainerd Road turned into a river. Steve Cook, director of the schoolage program at Kandy Kastle, estimated the property of Friendship Community Church, where Kandy Kastle leases space, suffered about $3,500 in damage.
“Our fence fell, we’ll have to mulch the ground, and we lost a bunch of toys,” Cook said. “We’ll have to shut our playground down for several days while we repair everything.”
On several streets, pools of water were accompanied by orange and white Chattanooga Public Works hazard signs. Justin Holland, deputy administrator for public works, said city crews spent the day monitoring flood-prone areas. He said the flooding wasn’t caused by any blockages of the city’s stormwater and sewer systems.
“It was just an overwhelming volume of rain at one time,” he said.
Fire department spokesman Bruce Garner said firefighters spent the day responding to “numerous” calls of motorists stalled in places where street flooding got ahead of public works crews and their signs,
though thankfully none of the calls they responded to involved injuries.
“Mostly just wet people, some with damage to their cars,” Garner said.
The National Weather Service had flood advisories and flash flood warnings in effect for much of the day. Eisentrout said the heavy storms in the morning and early afternoon were caused by a combination of things.
“The combination of a warm southwestern flow of moisture, plus daytime heating and an upper-level disturbance, caused instability, leading to the heavy storms,” he said.
Even parts of area highways flooded. Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman Jennifer Flynn said there was standing water on U.S. Highway 27 at the I-24 split early in the day Thursday, and said TDOT had to block off part of Cummings Highway near Lookout Mountain.
The fire department also closed a two-block area around the intersection of 10th and Market streets Thursday afternoon. EPB spokesman John Pless said a manhole at the intersection was emitting smoke. He wasn’t sure what caused it, but said the heavy rains could have been the cause.
Wendell Boring, assistant vice president for field operations for EPB, was also at the scene. He said no major outages were reported because of the flooding.
“We’ve had 21 calls, and 32 customers in the area without power,” Boring said. “It’s very scattered, but nothing that we’d call significant.”
With rain expected today and Saturday, and another low-pressure system moving into the area Sunday, Eisentrout said the area wasn’t likely to see consistent sunshine until Tuesday.
Contact staff writer Will Healey at whealey@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731.