Mother, father and child killed by fallen tree in Tennessee heavy rains
and flooding
[August 14, 2025]
By JONATHAN MATTISE and SARAH BRUMFIELD
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A mother, father and child were killed when a
tree fell on their car during heavy rain and flooding in Tennessee,
where submerged roads also led to dramatic rescues of people trapped in
their cars, authorities said Wednesday.
The three were killed when saturated ground caused a large tree to fall
in the Chattanooga suburb of East Ridge just after midnight, Hamilton
County Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Amy Maxwell said.
Additionally, authorities found a body Wednesday while searching for a
man who was swept away when he ran past firefighters and a barricade
blocking a flooded road Tuesday, according to the Chattanooga Fire
Department. The local police and medical examiner will determine the
cause of death.
The flooding prompted rescues of people stuck in homes and swamped
vehicles.
At a news conference Wednesday, officials said they didn't expect so
much rain and flooding to hit so quickly.
At one point, there were 60 vehicles on the flooded interstate, said
Chris Adams, director of emergency management for Hamilton County. Some
first responders were carrying people on their backs who couldn't move
well through the water, and placed them on the raised highway divider,
Adams added.
“We all know to 'turn around, not drown,’ but when you look at it and
it’s 2 inches deep, and then next thing you know it’s 4 feet deep,
that’s something you’ve never seen before,” Adams said.
There were so many calls for help that 911 calls were “holding in every
minute of every hour for about three hours straight,” with more than 940
calls between 6 p.m. and midnight, said Barbara Loveless, director of
operations for Hamilton County 911.
Troy Plemons, a communications systems technician for EPB, Chattanooga’s
electricity and telecommunications utility, said he was stuck in traffic
on an interstate in his bucket truck for two to three hours Tuesday
evening.
Then Plemons said he saw the flood water lift an SUV, and when he and
two Lawson Electric workers encouraged a woman inside to get out, she
threw up her hands because she didn’t know if she could. Plemons moved
to the bed of a truck next to him to try to get closer, but the water
was rising to her chest.
“I didn’t think there was any time,” he said. “I tried my best.”
Plemons said the water was reaching neck level for the woman in the SUV
when he used a boring bit offered by the Lawson Electric workers to
break the window and helped the woman get out.
“It was a rush for sure. I felt like I was pretty calm until I broke the
window,” Plemons said. “I was doing everything I could to get her out
because the water was rising pretty quick.”
There were several rescues of people whose cars were overwhelmed by
water in the area until the water receded about two to three hours later
and traffic began to move again, Plemons said.
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The East Brainerd branch of First Horizon Bank is flooded by the
waters of Mackey Branch, in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Aug. 12, 2025.
(Robin Rudd/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP)
“I felt like I was there at the right time,” he said. “I’m thankful
I was there to help that lady.”
Lawson Electric said its workers, Austin Camp and Brandon Shadwick,
coordinated for hours with Plemons as well as authorities to help
move between 25 and 35 people.
“From babies to seniors, we just kept moving. We didn’t talk to each
other," Shadwick said in a news release. "We just worked as hard and
as fast as we could to move people to safety.”
Anderson Stout watched it unfold from his truck.
“As soon as he pulled her out of that vehicle, I’m not joking, in
maybe three minutes, her vehicle was almost completely submerged
under the water,” Stout said.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for much of middle
Tennessee through Wednesday night, warning of scattered flash
flooding with tropical-like heavy rainfall and the possibility of
training storms, especially over already saturated areas.
Chattanooga's airport recorded more than 6.4 inches (about 16
centimeters) of rain Tuesday, marking the second-wettest day
recorded for the city dating back to 1879, according to a social
media post by the National Weather Service in Morristown. The
highest single-day total was nearly 9.5 inches (24 centimeters) in
September 2011 from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, the weather
service said.
Chattanooga Fire crews rescued people trapped in vehicles and
residents stuck in their homes, fire department officials said.
Flooding closed parts of Interstate 24 in the area, but it reopened
once floodwaters receded.
Swiftwater rescue teams rescued residents of three East Ridge homes
trapped by rising floodwaters, according to the Hamilton County
Sheriff’s Office.
Wamp, the mayor, toured East Ridge on Wednesday. He said that though
there was a tragic loss of life, the property and infrastructure
damage was “not as bad as I thought it would have been based on the
way things looked last night.”
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Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland.
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