COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. — Two Cocke County school resource officers are being celebrated in upper East Tennessee, after they rescued dozens of people during historic flooding. While Danny Reece and Dan Williams work as SROs, they are also on the county's swift water rescue team.
Reece and Williams spent the early part of Friday, Sept. 27, warning the community about rising water levels. They said once flooding started getting worse they went to the Emergency Management Operation Center where they were told to get on a helicopter.
Reece said they were told to see what help was needed and where. Then, they saw people stuck on rooftops and decided to help.
"We couldn't land. So, the pilot would hover beside the container. Sergeant Williams got off the helicopter and handed the people up to us and we'd put them in the helicopter and we flew them to safety," Reece said.
The sun had started to set, so they were rescuing people in the dark.
"Just being able to get to people and get them on the helicopter, that's all we were thinking about. Not really safety or anything like that — just get them, get them back and get them somewhere safe," Williams said.
To their schools, community and hundreds of people on social media, they're heroes. But for them, they said the real heroes are the community members who came together to help each other.
"This county came together. Nobody thought about themselves. Everyone got together and thought about what could we do to save these people and put the county back together," Williams said.