News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
More than 13.5 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.
Torrential rains that turned a spring weekend into a deadly natural disaster. This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the Nashville floods that killed 26 people and caused more than $2 billion in damage to personal property.
The Upper Cumberland got about half the amount of rain Nashville did during the storm. Creeks and streams flooded as did flood-prone streets and roads. However, the region did not suffer to the same degree Nashville did.
Dr. Evan Hart chairs the Earth Sciences Department at Tennessee Tech. He said the weekend serves an historic environmental event.
“Probably more like a 1,000-year flood,” Hart said. “We don’t know for sure but it was surely a rare event.”
Trying to understand the frequency of these types of flooding events can be a challenge to scientists. The frequency effects everything from urban planning to insurance rates.
Hart said reservoirs in the Upper Cumberland saw the biggest impact from the flood event.
“Dale Hollow and Center Hill Lake were already releasing water before the flooding,” Hart said. “The Corps of Engineers had to stop that and hold water back. Luckily, they had enough capacity in those reservoirs to do that.”
Environmentally, the flooding produced significant debris washing into lakes and rivers. Hart said he will always remember the photos of trash around the dams in the area that had to be removed. Though short-term in nature, the impact on the waterways can be significant, Hart said.
Hart has studied flooding of sinkholes. Hart said that is a significant phenomena in the Upper Cumberland. Sinkholes often cause flash flooding problems because the water cannot drain quickly enough.
