UNION CITY, Tenn. — Flash floods forced evacuations and search-and-rescue operations Friday in Obion County, in northwest Tennessee.
Residents in the Green Acres Mobile Home Community off West Reelfoot Boulevard in Union City were forced to leave their homes.
Local authorities used boats to rescue residents trapped in their homes. Our reporter witnessed about two dozen people being rescued.
“I looked outside and literally everything in our yard floated away,” said Hope Bryan, who was in waist-deep water when she got out of the Green Acres community. “I had to get my cat and literally the clothes on my back.”
Kim Davis, the manager of Green Acres, said the water had started to recede, but then came up quickly Friday morning. She was devastated by the sight.
“We have several still in there, some children still in there, so it’s a priority,” she said as fishing boats hauled families back to dry land.
Loved one anxiously waited as rescue crews spent hours bringing boat after boat back to shore. We saw children gripped tightly, pets held close.
One man told us he just moved in, and is sure he’s lost everything. Another man, blind with two kids, was also trapped. But thankfully, crews found them safe.
First responders said there were no fatalities or serious injuries.
The National Weather Service at Memphis said Friday morning that more than 10 inches of rain had fallen in the past 24 hours in parts of the Missouri bootheel and northwest Tennessee.
NWS called the situation in Union City “catastrophic flooding.” A Flood Warning was in effect for a large part of Obion County until 3:30 p.m. Friday.
The system that brought the rainfall is moving southward. A Flood Advisory was issued for Shelby County, including Memphis, until 12:30 p.m. Friday. Weather statements also were issued for some areas in northeast Mississippi.
