MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Officials have declared a state of emergency in Maury County southwest of Nashville because of flash flooding and there are reports of evacuations underway in Lewis County to the west.
Officials are warning people to seek higher ground after several houses and a couple of businesses flooded in the western part of Maury County. The county has one of the several school systems in the state that dismissed early. Meteorologists warned residents of West and Middle Tennessee that severe storms could bring heavy rain, strong winds, hail and even tornadoes to the region on Monday afternoon and evening. The storms are part of a weather system that generated tornadoes in Arkansas on Sunday.
Six West Tennessee counties are under a tornado watch.
In Maury County, officials feared that some school buses could not be able to take some schoolchildren home because of flooded roads.
“There’s a possibility that some children will not immediately be transported home,” Mark Blackwood, director of the Maury County Emergency Management Agency, said. “If it’s unsafe, certainly the drivers are not going to chance it.”
WSMV (https://bit.ly/S2nzJd ) is reporting that some people are being evacuated from their homes in Hohenwald because of flooding.
Blackwood and other emergency management officials are saying the worst is yet to come. They are warning people to prepare to seek shelter if necessary, to seek higher ground and to keep off flooded roads.
Meteorologists say thunderstorms will drop rain and possibly hail in Memphis Monday afternoon. Zach Maye, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Memphis, says the airport there received more than 2 inches of rain in a 24-hour period ending at 7 a.m. Monday.
In Middle Tennessee, officials say “super cell” thunderstorms with the potential to create long track-tornadoes and flooding are possible.
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