Rescuers are searching for the people still missing after Tennessee’s deadly flash floods.

U.S.|Rescuers are searching for the radical inactive missing aft Tennessee’s deadly flash floods.

• Aug. 24, 2021, 5:14 a.m. ET

The hunt teams from crossed Tennessee that person descended connected Humphreys County were pushing guardant with urgency connected Tuesday to find those whose whereabouts remained chartless aft devastating play flooding, fearful of the decease toll increasing further.

At slightest 21 radical person been confirmed dormant and astir 10 others remained missing, officials said, successful catastrophic flash flooding that clime scientists warned volition go lone much common.

Chief Grant Gillespie of the Waverly Department of Public Safety told reporters that crews were employing dense instrumentality to chew done mountains of debris wherever they feared that radical mightiness inactive beryllium trapped.

“That’s a painstaking process,” helium said.

The flooding struck a agrarian country of rivers, creeks and rolling woods successful and astir Humphreys County, astir 90 minutes westbound of Nashville. Up to 17 inches of rainfall fell connected Saturday, shattering the state’s 24-hour grounds by much than 3 inches.

One crushed the flood was truthful deadly is that specified smaller-scale storms tin beryllium trickier to forecast than ample upwind systems similar hurricanes, which are tracked successful portion by radar and outer data. Any dense rainfall, which produces heat, tin origin the forecasting models to execute poorly.

“It’s benignant of a worst-case script due to the fact that it’s a tiny upwind strategy that happens and develops quickly,” said Gary Lackmann, a prof of atmospheric subject astatine North Carolina State University. “For these kinds of events, it’s going to beryllium truly hard to get overmuch pb clip oregon forecast warning.”

Beyond the quality toll, the carnal devastation has been astir intolerable to comprehend. Entire neighborhoods were shredded. Some homes that were inactive intact were filled with mud and the rancid stench the h2o near behind.

In Waverly, the halfway of the destruction, anguish rippled done the intimately knit assemblage of astir 4,100 people.

Terri Owen recalled lasting connected her toes amid the tempest connected Saturday, struggling to support her caput supra the rising water. She could spot the pistillate crossed the thoroughfare clinging to a pillar connected her beforehand porch, her cries for assistance punctuated by piercing screams. Two days later, the woman’s dependable was inactive successful her head.

“We can’t assistance you!” Ms. Owen remembered shouting back.

The h2o was furious. Stoves, refrigerators and cars whipped by. The pillar came loose, Ms. Owen said, and the screaming intensified. The full location was swooped disconnected its moorings and carried down the block. The pistillate died, and truthful did her big son.

“God had nary much favour connected maine than the pistillate who mislaid her life,” Ms. Owen said, pulling down her sunglasses to hitch her eyes arsenic she sat connected her friend’s muddy beforehand porch. “I was conscionable successful a antithetic place.”