3 members of the Tennessee family killed by a falling tree as a flood zone of sudden flooding

A mother, father and child were killed when a tree fell on his car during heavy rains and floods in Tennessee, where submerged roads have also led to spectacular rescues of people trapped in their cars, the authorities said.

The three were killed when the saturated soil dropped a large tree in the suburbs of East Ridge Chattanooga just after midnight, said spokesperson for the Hamilton County Emergency Management Bureau, Amy Maxwell.

In addition, the authorities found a body on Wednesday as he was looking for a man who was swept when he passed the firefighters and a barricade blocking a flooded road on Tuesday, according to the Chattanooga fire service. Local police and the medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

The floods caused rescues of people trapped in submerged houses and vehicles.

At a press conference on Wednesday, officials said they did not expect so much rain and floods to strike so quickly.

Chattanooga airport recorded about 16 centimeters of rain on Tuesday, marking the second most used day recorded for the city dating from 1879, according to an article on social networks of the National Weather Service in Morristown.

Chattanooga fire teams have saved people trapped in vehicles and residents trapped in their homes, firefighters said. Flooding of the closed parts of the Interstate 24 in the region, but it reopened once the water fell.

According to the Hamilton County Sheriff Bureau, the rescue rescue teams in fast waters saved residents from three East Ridge ridges.

At one point, there were 60 vehicles on the flooded motorway, said Chris Adams, director of emergency management in Hamilton. Some first speakers transported people on their backs who could not move in the water well, placing them on the raised highway divider, added Adams.

“We all know” to go back, not drowning “, but when you look at him, and he is two inches deep, then the next thing, you know, he is four feet deep, it is something that you have never seen before,” said Adams.

There have been so many calls for help that the 911 “calls” were held every minute every hour for about three hours in a row “, with more than 940 calls between 6 pm and midnight, said Barbara Loveless, director of operations for the county of Hamilton 911.

Dramatic rescue of the motorist

Troy Plemons, technician in communication systems for EPB, the Chattanooga public electricity and telecommunications service, said that he was stuck in traffic on a inter -treatment in his bucket truck for two to three hours on Tuesday evening.

Plemons said he had seen the waters to raise an SUV, and when he and two electric workers from Lawson encouraged a woman inside to go out, she launched her hands because she did not know if she could. Plemons moved to the bed of a truck next to him to try to get closer, but the water rose to his chest.

“I didn’t think there was time,” he said. “I did my best.”

Plemons said that the water reached the level of the neck for the SUV woman when he used a boring piece offered by Lawson Electric workers to break the window and help the woman to go out.

“It was a rush, that’s for sure. I felt like I was quite calm until I broke the window,” said Plemons. “I was doing everything I could take it out because the water went up fairly quickly.”

There were several rescues of people whose cars were overwhelmed by water in the region until the water fell by about two to three hours later and traffic starts moving again, said Plemons.

“I felt like I was there at the right time,” he said. “I am grateful to be there to help this lady.”

Lawson Electric said that his workers, Austin Camp and Brandon Shadwick, coordinated for hours with Plemons, as well as the authorities to help move between 25 and 35 people.

“Babies in seniors, we continued to move. We were not talking about it,” said Shadwick in a press release. “We just worked as hard and as fast as possible to move people safe.”

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Anderson Stout watched him take place from his truck.

“As soon as he removed it from this vehicle, I am not joking, in perhaps three minutes, his vehicle was almost completely overwhelmed underwater,” said Stout.