HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF)- Those who experienced the deadly flooding that struck portions of the Chattanooga metropolitan area on Tuesday evening recounted their harrowing experiences, as four people died due to the event.
Tragically, a young family in East Ridge lost their lives late Tuesday Night after a tree fell on their car on South Moore Road.
East Ridge Police have identified 29 year old Yuri Lopez, 27 year old Giomara Vasquez, and three year old Emma Vicente as these victims, where debris of their vehicle still laid on Wednesday.
Additionally, Chattanooga Firefighters say that the remains of a man that matched the description of a male who went missing after his car was swept away in East Brainerd were discovered Wednesday afternoon.
Officials say he drove around a road closed sign before driving into flooded waters.
Meanwhile back in East Ridge, Ronda Kelly says her boyfriend and she saw 7 inches of water enter her home on Sunnyvale Avenue in the span of an hour.
Kelly said, “We were right here at the door, and he was there with his bag to get up there and I was in there with all of my stuff and turning the furniture over… I’m out.”
The rise necessitated a mandatory evacuation for her and other residents in this portion of East Ridge.
Kelly said, “Well since I had a close call once before. I knew what to grab, put some furniture up. Told him we need to move our cars and put them up there, I’m sorry… We just gotta figure out where to start.”
Officials say over 100 water related emergencies took place in Hamilton County over Tuesday evening, placing first responders unexpectedly in the heat of battle.
Chattanooga Police Chief John Chambers said, “Last night it’s safe to say it caught us by surprise. We did not expect the gravity of what occurred.”
Another piece of significant damage in East Ridge was a portion of the parking lot at the First Tennessee Shopping Center on Ringgold Road buckling away, with a piece of asphalt being ripped out of the ground and floating over 20 feet away.
Nearby, Carl and Kathy Dolloff said this was the second flood they’ve experienced in two months, despite their home not being in a floodplain.
Kathy said, “We’re retired, so I mean we’re on a fixed income. While we have savings, we do not want to deplete it on this.”
Carl added, “We’re probably going to get flood insurance now. We used to have it, but it went up.”
Kathy remarked, “We never had a flood, so we dropped it!”
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp says this is the worst flooding to hit Hamilton County since the Saint Patrick’s Day Flood of 1973, but added that he expected the psychical damage to be worse given the initial reports and the amount of water rescues on Tuesday evening.
Mayor Wamp said, “Being on the ground in East Ridge today, in parts I was grateful that it was not worse than it was. You certainly got the feeling that another inch or two, 7 inches in 3 hours of course is historic, but another inch or two and this could’ve been a whole lot worse.”
Meanwhile, an EPB employee says he saved a woman from the raging floodwaters on I-24 Tuesday.
Troy Plemmons was returning from a job when he found himself on the interstate when it began to flood.
He says that one woman’s vehicle started to be overtaken, and that’s when he sprung into action.
Plemmons says that he trudged through roughly 8 feet of water and was able to pull her out of her vehicle in less than two minutes.
He described how intense this experience was.
“The water was rising quick and her car was sinking at the same time, so it was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be so when I saw her face she was crying on her phone, didn’t really know what was going on… I broke into her back window and she was saying, “I can’t move, I can’t get it!” So I just made my way over to the middle window and broke it, and was able to get her out, and swam back to my truck,” said Plemmons.
That woman, along with everyone else trapped in the 60 cars affected on I-24, escaped uninjured.
