Tennessee rainstorm acted more like hurricane

Up to 17 inches in under 24 hours sets new record

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A rural Tennessee community was pummeled Saturday with up to 17 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, shattering the state record for one-day rainfall by more than 3 inches and leading to quick-rushing floods that killed at least 22 people and left a trail of destruction.

The hardest-hit areas were inundated with nearly twice the amount of rain the region had seen in the previous worst-case flooding scenario, meteorologists said. Lines of storms moved over the area around the small town of Waverly for hours, wringing out a record amount of moisture. The devastation centered on Humphreys County, with a population of about 18,000 and 60 miles west of Nashville.

A lot of ran falling at fast rate

A flash-flood watch was issued for the area before the rain started, with forecasters saying 4 to 6 inches were possible. Before Saturday’s deluge, the worst storm recorded in this area of central Tennessee dropped more than 9 inches of rain in 2010, said Krissy Hurley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Nashville.

She said Saturday’s storms kept redeveloping and went over the same areas repeatedly, resulting in upward of 3 to 4 inches of rain per hour.

“In my almost 20-year career, I’ve never seen rainfall amounts and rainfall rates this high not associated with some type of hurricane or tropical system,” Hurley said. “So, to see something like this inland in Middle Tennessee is prob

ably the rare of rare.”

The town of McEwen near Waverly was pummeled Saturday with 17.02 inches of rain, smashing the state’s 24hour record of 13.6 inches from 1982, according to the National Weather Service in Nashville, though Saturday’s numbers still have to be confirmed.

Waverly sustains worst damage

The deluge left rescue teams scrambling to find those missing in Waverly, the town with the worst damage and now a landscape of collapsed houses, tangled debris and flipped vehicle. The search was still ongoing Monday.

Because of the county’s terrain, water gushed into Waverly westward down Trace Creek from surrounding areas, some of which are several-hundred feet higher, Hurley said.

“That’s why folks who live there talk about this big wall of water that came on very quickly,” Hurley said.

Hurley said her region of Tennessee has seen four significant flood events recently, happening nearly every six months.

JOHN AMIS/AP Dustin Shadownes of the Ashland City Fire Department searches a creek for missing persons along with a cadaver dog Monday in Waverly, which was the hardest-hit city in Tennessee from a storm Saturday.