KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Communities in upper East Tennessee were dunked underwater as historic flooding swamped the area, tearing apart homes and sweeping away roads. Republican Senator Bill Hagerty surveyed the damage on Monday after federal leaders recognized the disaster and approved federal disaster assistance.
Gov. Bill Lee requested a major disaster declaration for Tennessee, which is currently under review, according to FEMA.
While Hagerty commended emergency responders and the Tennessee Valley Authority's systems for preventing additional flooding, he said the weather event was exceptionally rare.
"The way they described it to me is, if you took all the rain that fell in Northeast Tennessee through the course of the storms, and spread it across the entire state of Tennessee, the water would be 3 feet deep," he said. "They said that this was not a one-in-100, one-in-200, not one-in-500 year event. It was in the thousands of years. They've never seen anything like that. So, how do you prepare for something like that?"
He said there would likely need to be several temporary infrastructure repairs made in impacted communities over the coming months — helping return students to schools and allowing people in those communities to return to their daily lives. He said that work would include repairing roads and bridges that have been washed out, and repairing railways.
"It's going to take a while to do this. Most important is getting water treatment in place, urgently," he said.
He also said the Tennessee National Guard would have up to 250 service members in the area, helping with relief efforts. He also said crews were arriving from other parts of the country and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was helping with relief efforts in the state. It was also helping other states impacted by the storm.
He said earlier, resources were sent to Florida to help with the recovery. However, he said the state was better equipped to respond to the storm, so resources were instead moved to help other impacted states.
"It's going to take a tremendous amount of work to remove the debris, and we've got the professionals coming in to help us do that. It's urgent, and it's got to happen," he said. "I'm certain that FEMA would be at the forefront, they've already been very responsive, and I'm going to continue to work with them."
