A state of emergency, near-historic flooding: How Tennessee fared after weekend storms

• Clarksville hit the second-highest rain total in one day, according to the National Weather Service.
• The town of Rives is under a state of emergency after evacuating that majority of their 250 residents.

Tresa Summar bought her home in the small, West Tennessee town of Rives a year ago. Sunday, she was ferried away from that home with nothing but the clothes on her back as flood waters began to consume the community.

“This has been very, very traumatizing, not knowing what the unknown is,” Summar said. “We lost our home and right now, I don’t know what we’re going to do and where we’re going to go.”

Summar and almost all of the 250 residents in Rives, a community 20 minutes from the Kentucky state line, were forced to evacuate when a levee failed after rounds of rain pummeled the state Saturday.

The storm hit Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia with flash flooding, hail and tornado threats over the weekend. It left at least 12 dead, mostly in Kentucky.

While Tennessee was spared from rising death tolls, flooding ravaged cities across the state.

Obion County Mayor Steve Carr declared a state of emergency for Rives. Officials used boats to evacuate people and power was shut off to parts of the town. Drivers headed toward the small town were turned away.

Officials set up shelters at Ridgemont Elementary School and the Woodland Mills Civic Center, where Summar was taken, to provide food, shelter and clothing for displaced residents in Rives.

“I’ve been here 35 years, and this is one I’ve never seen before,” Rives Fire Chief Campbell Rice said Monday.

Flooded roads, homes in Middle Tennessee

Similar scenes played out near Nashville.

Authorities in Sumner County closed more than a dozen roads over the weekend as murky water crept up on roadways, and Clarksville fire crews rescued people from flooded homes and streets on Sunday.

About 5.92 inches of rain fell there Saturday — the second highest daily precipitation total measured in Clarksville behind 6.66 inches on Sept. 26, 2002 — inundating roadways, according to the National Weather Service Nashville. Four of the top seven daily rainfall totals have occurred within the past 10 months, the weather service said.

The Clarksville Street Department announced that several roads had reopened Monday as water receded.

The City of Clarksville said on it’s Facebook page the American Red Cross established a shelter at Clarksville Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 1230 Northfield Drive, to assist those impacted by flooding.

Rivers cause for concern

As the rain kept falling well into Sunday, officials remained cautious about the rivers in Middle Tennessee.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased its hours to manage a waterways and water release from reservoirs with keen eyes on the Cumberland River and the Red River at Port Royal in Montgomery and Robertson counties.

Sunday morning, the Cumberland River in Nashville crested at 35.85 feet, and hit 51.2 feet in Clarskville, about four feet shy of a major flood.

The Red River at Port Royal crested at 45.6 feet, the third-highest flood crest on record, behind May 2010 and March 1975, the City of Clarksville said on it’s Facebook page.

Staff reporter Kelly Puente contributed reporting.