KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knoxville city crews have mostly drained all the water after Thursday morning's storms flooded the parking lot of an apartment complex next to the University of Tennessee campus.
Chris Howley, Knoxville's stormwater engineering chief, said crews spent Thursday investigating why the drainage system at 23rd Street was not working as it should. By Friday, they had an answer: Debris had clogged up the stormwater drainage system.
Several cars at University Walk were submerged underwater outside the apartment complex Thursday morning because the storm drains weren't flowing quickly enough to keep up with the flooding. Howley said the heavy downpour likely would not have impacted that community if the large drains weren't clogged up with debris, which included things like discarded laundry baskets and clothes.
"At the end of the day, that pipe that comes into that area, I could walk through it. It's six feet tall, it's a big pipe, it goes into two other large pipes. And if those pipes are flowing full they would carry that much water, and the amount of water that they're carrying right now is probably 5% of that, maybe less," he said.
Howley said the city worked to install a pump to help drain some of the water that remained just outside University Walk apartments.
Anna Dozier, a UT student who lives at University Walk, said she experienced the impact of the thunderstorms firsthand.
"I woke up for work at around 7 a.m. and, we have a GroupMe chat for our apartment, and I checked it and I saw pictures of the flooding," she said. "So I went, looked out my window and I saw my car was completely flooded."
She said she had filed her insurance claim and was waiting to hear back from them. However, she said there were many others in her same situation.
"They [the cars] are all totaled, completely," she said. "The water level has completely risen up into our cars. We are just going to have to get new ones, I suppose, with the money we get from insurance."
The Knoxville Fire Department responded to the scene during the severe weather event and pulled people from four cars on the roadway, according to assistant fire chief Mark Wilbanks.