COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. — In the days that followed the devastating flooding in Cocke County, emergency management workers set up a missing persons hotline so people could easily report if loved ones could not be found. The Cocke County Emergency Management Agency said it received around 100 calls.
The agency said Wednesday it has since cleared every report it received, and said calls have dropped to the single digits. Those calls have been quickly cleared by volunteer fire departments, the Cocke County Sheriff's Office and the swift water rescue team. By Wednesday afternoon, the agency said there were no missing person reports.
It said the hotline would be deactivated on Friday at 12 p.m. and said all future reports about missing people would need to be placed as calls to 911. People can also call the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's hotline for help about missing people, available at 800-824-3463, or 800-TBI-FIND.
The agency also said Wednesday that it would stop requiring proper identification to collect cases of water at its main distribution site, located at 613 West Broadway in Newport. The agency said it recognized that "proper ID in these extreme circumstances may be unreasonable for some."
It also said it saw several people carpooling with families from across the community to the distribution site. It said leaders at the distribution site would require all household representatives in the car to fill out the same tracking form as the driver. The agency said it was loading three cases of water per household until further notice.
The agency also said it was handing out a trash bag whenever it gave out water, so people could throw away water bottles and the community could avoid having additional litter end up in the rivers.
The Cocke County EMA said it was "overwhelmed with gratitude and emotion" after it said donations piled up from people across the region. More than 1,000 cases of water arrived in the county after the flooding damaged its water systems.
"Rumors that Cocke County is ungrateful or that we are turning away help are false. There are trucks and trailers arriving at all hours of the day and night with supplies we had no idea were coming," the agency said on social media.