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At least three people from the same family were among those killed during heavy rain and flooding in Tennessee, as submerged roads caused chaos and led to dramatic rescues of people trapped in their cars, authorities said Wednesday.
The three, a mother, father, and child, 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.
Authorities said they found another body on Wednesday while searching for a man who was swept away when he ran past firefighters and a barricade blocking a flooded road on Tuesday, according to the Chattanooga Fire Department.
Local police and a medical examiner are expected to determine the cause of death, US media reported.
People were stuck in vehicles and homes
At a news conference on 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.
The flooding prompted rescues of people stuck in homes and swamped vehicles, officials said.
Some six million people were under a flood watch through Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service, which also warned of the potential for training storms, particularly over already saturated terrain, and sporadic flash flooding with tropical-like heavy rains.
Heavy rains triggering floods across US
Chattanooga’s airport recorded more than 6.4 inches (about 16 centimetres) of rain Tuesday, marking the second-wettest day recorded for the city dating back to 1879, according to a social media post by the National Weather Service in Morristown.
The highest single-day total was nearly 9.5 inches (24 centimetres) in September 2011 from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, the weather service said.
Chattanooga Fire Department officials said their crews had to rescue people trapped in vehicles and residents stuck in their homes. Although flooding closed parts of Interstate 24 in the area, it reopened once floodwaters receded, authorities said.
This summer, parts of the US are seeing more flash flooding, as record-breaking rains pour in some regions, something scientists attribute to climate change brought on by pollution from fossil fuels.
Last month, the US National Weather Service had already issued over 3,600 flash flood warnings nationwide, nearly equal to its annual average.
And according to the latest weather forecasts, several areas of the US will see pockets of severe thunderstorms during the weekend, increasing the possibility of lightning, gusty winds, and flash flooding.