I like Nashville. Music City USA is a fun town, with a lot of great music and food joints. It wasn’t such a great place to visit this weekend.
Opryland’s 1,500 guests spent the night in a high school to escape rising floodwaters that threatened other areas of downtown hit by devastating thunderstorms that slammed Tennessee and northern Mississippi, killing at least 15 people.
More than 13 inches of rain fell in Nashville over two days, nearly doubling the previous record of 6.68 inches that fell in the wake of Hurricane Fredrick in 1979.
Authorities in Tennessee were preparing for more deaths and for the Cumberland River, which winds through the Music City, to crest at 10 feet above flood stage before sunrise, putting portions of downtown in danger of the kind of damage experienced by thousands of residents whose homes were swamped by flash floods.
The Cumberland River had already reached record levels since an early 1960s flood control project was put in place. With so much water inundating the Cumberland’s tributaries, however, it was difficult to gauge whether the river would stop at 50 feet or exceed the forecast, increasing the water’s spread in the city.
Authorities weren’t taking any chances. They evacuated the downtown area, north Nashville where a leaky levee threatened residents and businesses. Flooding could hit the downtown tourism industry, the train depot and near LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play.
At least 11 were dead in Tennessee and four in northern Mississippi. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency officials say there is likely a 12th victim, but a body had not been recovered. The death toll from storms in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee since April 24 rose to at least 26 with several people missing. Three people in Mississippi were killed when high winds believed to be tornadoes hit their homes and a fourth died after he drove into flood waters.
The weekend deaths came on the heels of a tornado in Arkansas that killed a woman and injured about two dozen people Friday. And just a week ago, 10 people were killed by a tornado from a separate storm in western Mississippi.
Five people have died in Nashville where on Sunday authorities found two people who drowned in a home and two others who died when their vehicle overturned in flood waters.
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