At least 22 dead, many missing, in Tennessee floods

A sheriff in Tennessee said that 22 people are dead in Humphreys County after record-setting rain caused devastating flooding that swept away homes.

A Facebook page from officials in Waverly listed about 40 missing people.

Humphreys County sheriff Chris Davis said many of the missing were from neighbourhoods hit hardest by Saturday’s flash flood and the search for them continues.

The dead ranged in age from young children to elderly people, Mr Davis said.

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Up to 17 inches of rain fell in Humphreys County in less than 24 hours on Saturday, appearing to shatter the Tennessee record for one-day rainfall by more than three inches, the National Weather Service said.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee toured the area, stopping on Main Street in Waverly where some homes were washed off their foundations and people were sifting though their water-logged possessions.

Shirley Foster cried as the governor walked up. She said she just learned a friend from her church was dead.

“I thought I was over the shock of all this. I’m just tore up over my friend. My house is nothing, but my friend is gone,” Ms Foster told the governor.

The hardest-hit areas saw double the rain that area of Middle Tennessee had in the previous worst-case scenario for flooding, meteorologists said.

Lines of storms moved over the area for hours, wringing out a record amount of moisture — a scenario scientists have warned may be more common because of global warming.

The downpours rapidly turned the creeks that run behind backyards and through downtown Waverly into raging rapids.

By Sunday, the floodwaters were gone, leaving behind debris from wrecked cars, demolished businesses and homes and a chaotic, tangled mix of the things inside.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Henri rocked the north-eastern US with strong winds and rain as it made landfall on the coast of Rhode Island on Sunday.

Henri sent lashing bands of rain westward, knocking out power to over 140,000 homes and causing deluges that closed bridges, swamped roads and left some people stranded in their vehicles.

The storm was downgraded from a hurricane before reaching New England, but the National Hurricane Centre warned the slow-moving storm would continue dumping heavy rains on wide swaths of the region well beyond the weekend.

Over two days, heavy, sustained rains flooded areas as far southwest as New Jersey, even as it took on tropical depression status.

The storm threatened to stall near the New York-Connecticut border overnight, before pivoting east and moving out toward the Atlantic Ocean on Monday.

Some of the highest rain totals were expected inland. There were few early reports of major coastal damage due to wind or surf.

US president Joe Biden on Sunday promised to provide federal help to the residents of affected states. The president declared disasters in much of the region, opening the purse strings for federal recovery aid.

When it made landfall near Westerly, Rhode Island, Henri had sustained winds of about 100kmh and gusts of up to 110kmh, according to the National Hurricane Centre.

By late Sunday, Henri had sustained winds of about 50kmh as it moved across Connecticut toward the New York state line.

Some of the worst rain arrived well before the storm’s centre. In Helmetta, New Jersey, about 200 residents fled for higher ground, taking refuge in hotels or with friends and family, as flood waters inundated their homes.

“It came so quick — in the blink of an eye,” said the town’s mayor, Christopher Slavicek, whose parents were spending the night after fleeing their home.

“Now there’s clean up. So this is far from over.”

Some communities in central New Jersey were inundated with as much as eight inches of rain by midday on Sunday.

Connecticut governor Ned Lamont said Henri was close to being in the “rear view mirror”, but said there was still more work to do, even as mandatory evacuations were being lifted in some communities.

About 250 residents from four nursing homes on the shoreline had to be relocated to other nursing homes.

Several major bridges in Rhode Island, which stitch together much of the state, were briefly shuttered and some coastal roads were nearly impassable.

The National Weather Service recorded what could be the wettest hour ever in Central Park, with 1.94 inches of torrential rainfall pelting the park between 10pm and 11pm on Saturday.

After passing back through New England and sweeping out into the Atlantic over the next couple of days, the hurricane centre predicted, Henri “will lose its identity”.

Until then, areas from northeast Pennsylvania through New England braced for heavy rains. -- PA