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Southern floods, storms kill 22
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman May 03, 2010 07:34pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Chris Talbott and Sheila Burke |
| Media | Newspaper - USA Today |
| News Date | Monday, May 3, 2010 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Nashville braced for more deaths Monday as the flooded Cumberland River continued to swell, sending muddy water rushing through neighborhoods and into parts of the historic heart of Music City after a destructive line of weekend storms killed 22 people in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.
Thousands of people took refuge in emergency shelters, including about 1,500 guests at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center who spent the night at a high school to escape the flooding. The resort's hotel, located northeast of downtown along the river, had "significant water" inside and would remain closed indefinitely, said hotel spokeswoman Kim Keelor. A life-sized Elvis statue, missing his guitar, was laying on its back in the parking lot of the Wax Museum of the Stars near Opryland Hotel.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen got a bird's eye view of the flooding damage during a helicopter tour of the area on Monday. As he crossed the Tennessee River and neared the hard-hit area of Madison County, flood waters were so deep that the tops of trees made the land looked like islands. "I've never seen flooding like this," Bredesen said.
The rain ended Monday but there will likely be weeks of cleanup. Though there was no official estimate, it was clear thousands of homes had been damaged or destroyed by flooding and tornados. Emily Petro, with the Red Cross in Nashville, said the agency was sheltering about 2,000 people across Tennessee — about 1,200 of them in Nashville. Most schools in middle Tennessee were closed Monday and many universities in the Nashville area postponed final exams.
The state's roads also were in bad shape. The three major interstates in the Nashville area were closed over the weekend and Interstate 40, which runs east to west through the state, reopened Monday. In Kentucky, more than 300 roads were blocked by flood waters, officials said. |
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