Tennessee has done an excellent job recruiting quarterbacks since Josh Heupel made it to campus. Heupel has landed four quarterbacks including Nico Iamaleava, Jake Merklinger, George MacIntyre, and Faizon Brandon. It’s safe to say they locate their targets early on and have done just that in the 2027 class.

Trae Taylor is a Lake In The Hills, Illinois prospect who attends Carmel Catholic High School. Taylor is a four-star target who recently received his Tennessee offer and offers from 20+ schools as a current sophomore in high school. Many anticipate him to be a five-star.

He caught up with Tennessee on SI following his offer.

“It is a special offer to me. Tennessee was one of the first schools my dad took me to when I was younger. This helped me to dream about playing in front of over 100k fans one day,” the 2027 QB states. “It was Coach Halzle and Coach Militello who offered me. They just said they watched my film and loved it. They think I’d be a great fit for them with the things I do. (Which I do agree with). Tennessee, once they started recruiting me has been very consistent,” Taylor stated.

He will visit Rocky Top sooner than later and is working on finding a date soon. “I’m most definitely going to visit.  We are trying to figure out a good date to make this happen. But I’m definitely getting down there this season.” Tennessee is already making noise being listed in Taylor’s early edition of a top 10 that has not been finalized. “Tennessee right now is in my top 10.  As a QB who wouldn’t want to play in an offense where you know they throw it around?  Play in an amazing stadium, and home of Peyton Manning. The fan base has already shown a ton of love on social media. I have already seen the facilities multiple times so I know what that is.”

Moving forward the prospect hopes to connect well with this staff. “I want to see if we connect and if they can develop me to be a 1st round draft pick. Now that I have the offer I’ll make sure to reach out to Joe Milton and get his feedback on things.”

“My biggest message is if this is the school I pick, just know I give my all to be great. That will not change at Tennessee. So keep showing that Tennessee love and I’ll see you soon.”

He also had a story to share about Coach Joey Halzle.

“Just know the first time Coach Halzle saw me throw I was in 6th or 7th grade and I had a great conversation with him and the rest of the staff.  Been a long time coming.  Coach still has not followed me on Twitter like he said years ago,” Taylor said jokingly…”But this offer makes up for that.”

Other Tennessee News:

Join the Community:

You can follow us for future coverage by clicking “Follow” on the top right-hand corner of the page. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook @VolunteerCountry & follow us on Twitter at @VCountryFN.

When Kriston Hicks first got an alert of a flash flood emergency at 9:20 a.m. Sept. 27, the home she shared with her 78-year-old grandfather in Hampton, Tennessee, was already doomed.

“I was wading through water to get my disabled grandfather into the van to leave because I had decided on my own that we needed to evacuate,” Hicks told Knox News in a text Oct. 3, the day after her home was demolished. “No one came to tell me. There is no siren in Hampton.”

The Doe River watershed in Carter County was one of several in East Tennessee that swelled to historic levels as remnants of Hurricane Helene drenched the southern Appalachian mountains in what the National Weather Service said was a once-in-a-millennium rainfall event.

In the National Weather Service office in Morristown, which covers East Tennessee, meteorologists were coordinating with local emergency management officials in several counties to issue warnings.

So, why did the warnings seem to come too late for many people across the region?

The answer lies partly in how the National Weather Service issues flash flood warnings, with emergencies and wireless text alerts reserved for “imminent or ongoing” severe flooding, said Morristown meteorologist Brandon Wasilewski.

Three levels to flash flood warnings in East Tennessee

People reading NWS updates on social media in the days leading up to the generational flood, which claimed at least 12 lives in Tennessee, got a sense of the danger ahead.

By Sept. 25, the NWS office in Morristown was already warning of “extreme risk of life-threatening flooding” along the Tennessee-North Carolina border as Helene moved through. At that point, the office had issued only a flood watch.

Residents in border counties did not get a wireless alert of emergency flash flooding until mid-morning on Sept. 27, when the flooding was already underway.

The National Weather Service needs to have confirmation of life-threatening flooding and “catastrophic damages occurring or imminent” before sending out a rare flash flood emergency, Wasilewski told Knox News.

Text alerts go out once the office adds a “considerable” or “catastrophic” tag to the flood warning, triggered by reports that “flash flooding capable of unusual severity of impact is imminent or ongoing,” Wasilewski said.

One trigger for the highest “catastrophic” tag is that multiple water rescues have occurred. The service relies on local emergency managers to handle evacuation orders.

“We always want to try to be proactive,” Wasilewski said. “We’re the ones that send it out, but we want to make sure that it’s risen to that level.”

While the National Weather Service issues flood warnings for specific rivers, it does not have a mechanism to alert specific communities at special risk of flooding. That’s something the service would like to add in the future, Wasilewski said.

“We don’t have the capability at this time specifically, and that’s why we do rely on more of the local officials,” Wasilewski said. “Whenever we do have an event of this magnitude, this is something that we always try to review and try to learn from.”

The week before the storm was already a strange one for weather in East Tennessee. On Sept. 24, East Tennessee recorded its first ever September tornado, an EF-1 twister in Hancock County with 110 mph winds.

The region also got 2-4 inches of rain before Helene even arrived as a tropical storm, which saturated the ground and caused fiercer runoff later on.

Some residents didn’t make much of flood warnings

Three rivers in particular carried a surge of floodwater from western North Carolina to East Tennessee – the French Broad, Nolichucky and Pigeon rivers. The hard-hit town of Erwin sits on the Nolichucky in Unicoi County.

Zully Manzanares, a Head Start program coordinator in Erwin, saw the flash flood warnings that began the night of Sept. 26 but didn’t realize the danger.

“We’ve gotten them before, but I don’t think the alerts were enough to make us realize like that it was going to be to the extent that it was,” Manzanares told Knox News. “The alerts were coming, but I don’t think that they were to the extreme that they needed to be so that people would have taken it more seriously.”

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe. 

In a sobering tale of heroism and tragedy, Boone McCrary, a devoted emergency room nurse and outdoors enthusiast, set out to rescue a man stranded by Hurricane Helene’s flooding in Tennessee. McCrary, accompanied by his girlfriend, Santana Ray, and his chocolate lab, Moss, encountered disaster when debris clogged their boat motor, leading to a crash into a bridge support that caused the boat to overturn. Ray managed to cling to a branch until rescuers reached her hours later. McCrary and his dog died.

The man McCrary aimed to save, David Boutin, was successfully rescued after clinging to tree branches for six hours. Boutin was devastated upon learning about McCrary’s fate saying, “I’ve never had anyone risk their life for me […] He’s my guardian angel.” McCrary’s body was found days later, 21 river miles away, highlighting the unforgiving nature of Helene’s floods, which claimed 215 lives across six states.

McCrary’s selfless act underscores his commitment to others, echoed by heartfelt tributes from his coworkers at Greeneville Community Hospital. Friends and family remember him for his kindness and zest for life. His sister, Laura Harville, coordinated a massive search effort, demonstrating the profound community spirit inspired by a man whose “life wish” drove him to embrace every moment, even if it occasionally led him to be seen as both “crazy” and a bit reckless. McCrary’s legacy remains a poignant reminder of the heroic sacrifices made in the face of natural calamities. (This story was generated by Newser’s AI chatbot. Source: the AP)