Nearly 10,000 homes in Tennessee’s Greene County remain without access to tap water after record floodwaters wrought by Tropical Storm Helene destroyed the county’s main water supply over the weekend.
At least 120 people were killed in the storm that landed in Florida’s Big Bend region and passed through several states before dumping historic amounts on western North Carolina and east Tennessee.
At least two people have been confirmed dead in Greene County and six across Tennessee. More than 100 more residents are still missing in nearby Washington County. Many that remain in Greene County are struggling to meet basic needs, like tap water.
The Nolichucky River that winds through the center of the county and is the region’s primary source of drinking water rose to unprecedented heights of at least 60 feet on Friday, wiping out several homes and submerging the intake pumps at the Greeneville Water Commission’s treatment plant.
The Greenville Water Commission turned off the pumps at 2 p.m. on Saturday, leaving residents with about a 24 hour supply of water. By Monday, many said they had no water. Sally Fletcher and her daughter say they’ve been without power and water for days.
“You really do realize what you take for granted when you have to do without,” Fletcher said on Monday. “So you know, we've got several things of water… we stuck buckets out in the rain last night… so we have water to wash our hands if we need to, and to fill the toilets with, obviously, and things like that.”
Officials have yet to announce a formal timeline of repairs for infrastructure in the county, though it is expected that it will take at least a week to fully restore water service. In the meantime, residents can get cases of water bottles on Wednesday and Friday of this week at various water distribution sites throughout the county. More information can be found here.
By Monday, the flood waters had receded to near normal levels and utility crews had restored power to most homes in the county, according to data from the Greeneville Energy Authority.
However, the damage had already been done. Flooding took out the Earnest, Kinser, Poplar Springs and Conway Bridges on the Nolichucky River, and damaged three more. Concerned about the integrity of those three remaining bridges, officials made the decision to close them in order to conduct safety inspections before allowing residents to cross.
This left some Greene County residents stranded on the southside of the river for 24 hours on Saturday, cutoff from the nearby city of Greeneville. As of Monday, the Asheville Highway bridge was the only available crossing on the Nolichucky River in Greene County.
‘People really come together in situations like this’
Despite the drastic conditions, residents have come together to support those in need. A local South Greene High School partnered with the First Christian Church to hand out water at a gas station near what used to be the Kinser Bridge.
Pastor Bob Radank was among the volunteers handing out bottled water at a gas station, located just fifty feet from the Highway 107 Bridge, also known as Kinser Bridge.
“We've got a ton of volunteers that come out here,” Radank said. “And we had a truck driver come and bring the huge, huge thing of water ... These volunteers have been loading these things up into the vehicles as the people come through.”
Less than five minutes after distribution began, the volunteers at the gas station were already halfway out of water.
Nearby, Nancy Daniels and Josephine Roberts, two lifelong residents of Greene County, stood near foundations of homes that were no longer there.
The churning floodwaters on the Nolichucky River had picked up and carried away two trailer homes which once sat just yards away from the bridge and that same station near the river. Remnants of the homes could be seen tangled in the nearby trees.
Daniels shared that her grandson was driving on the bridge just minutes before it closed and collapsed soon after.
“And it just scares me to think that 15 to 20 minutes difference could have been a lot of difference for a lot of people,” She said. “But luckily, it got closed before it collapsed.”
Daniels and Roberts both arrived at the gas station a few hours early to pick up a free case of water, thinking people would line up. They said they have never seen devastation quite like this before in their region.
Wendy Brown, a resident who lives along the river, said she and her husband Craig heard the moment that the Kinser Bridge collapsed. She remembers the force of the water carrying various debris, including refrigerators, large trees and propane tanks.
“I've never seen water rage like that, and I've been to different places throughout the world,” Brown said. “You could feel it to your core when you're watching it, but you could feel it resonate, and you could feel it vibrate in your body.”
The Browns feel fortunate that the only thing they lost was a portion of their back porch, which leads down to the riverbank. They were one of the few households who still had power throughout the weekend, and invited some of their friends and neighbors, who were less fortunate, to stay with them.
“We've had two families that have come and kind of spent some time just to have some normalcy,” Brown said. “Just be able to hang out and feel normal in a rough situation for a little bit.”
Governor Bill Lee on Monday requested an expedited Major Disaster Declaration for Greene county.
This story was produced with the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom.
