Rain totalsRain totals (as of Tuesday morning):• Chattanooga: 2 inches• Red Bank: 2.8 inches• Brainerd area: 1.76 inches• Signal Mountain area: 2.9 inches• Marion County: 2 inches• Dade County: 3/4 inch• Chatooga County: 1.19 inches• Walker County: 1.07 inchesSource: National Weather Service
Tennessee Department of Transportation employees work to clear Ochs Highway after overnight rains caused a mudslide blocking the Lookout Mountain road early Tuesday morning.
Site of mudslide that closed Ochs Highway on Lookout Mountain.Rain pummeled Chattanooga and surrounding areas Tuesday, resulting in power outages, accidents and a mudslide that closed Ochs Highway on Lookout Mountain, but the region escaped the widespread damage in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.
Monday and Tuesday, Chattanooga measured between 2 and 3 inches of rain, said Derek Eisentrout, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn. He said higher amounts were seen near Signal Mountain, Red Bank and eastern counties in the foothills.
A section of Interstate 24 near exit 175, west of Chattanooga, was closed part of the day becasue of flooding in both the east- and westbound lanes. Traffic was diverted to other roads.
North Georgia saw less rain than initially predicted. Carly Kovacik, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga., said as of 9 a.m. Tuesday, Dade and Walker counties had seen only around an inch. Counties farther east, such as Murray and Whitfield, saw closer to 2 or 3 inches. But Kovacik said that rain slowed greatly during the day Tuesday, with about a 10th of an inch accumulating.
On Lookout Mountain, a mudslide on Ochs Highway near Sanders Road shut down that section of the highway for most of the day on Tuesday as crews worked to clear it, according to dispatch officers.
Steve Lamb, director of emergency management for Marion County, said several trees were down there. And around 1 a.m. Tuesday a truck hydroplaned on Interstate 24 east at mile marker 140, crashing through the guardrail and down part of Monteagle Mountain. Lamb said no one was injured.
"Considering the way the truck was sitting, it's pretty amazing," he said.
Some area schools chose to delay school for two hours Tuesday morning, fearing flooding. Dispatch officers for the Chattanooga Police Department reported downed trees throughout the day, resulting in several brief road closures. Flooding also caused some local road closures as officers called for barricades to keep cars out of the water.
Dade County, Ga., was under a flood warning Monday night, but as of Tuesday afternoon dispatchers said there was no significant flooding and no damage reported.
About a thousand EPB customers lost power Tuesday, spokesman John Pless said. He said outages occurred all over the area, with as few as two people to more than 150 people affected in each outage. He said the biggest cause wasn't lightning, but just heavy rain and wind.
Pless said an extra shift was called in Tuesday to try and fix the outages as quickly and safely as possible.
Caleb Fox, Harlon Baldwin, Pendleton Sibley and Chris Boettner, from left, members of the Chattanooga Junior Rowing team, bail water from launcher boats, which their coaches use to follow the team as they row, on Tuesday at the Chattanooga Rowing Center along the Tennessee Riverwalk. Heavy rain and storms brought flooding to the region Monday night and morning.The National Weather Service on Tuesday confirmed a weak tornado hit near Clarksville on Monday, The Associated Press reported.
The Weather Service said Tuesday the EF1 twister occurred after 6 p.m. CDT just southeast of Clarksville with peak winds of 90 mph. A survey team found some roof and tree damage in the area where the tornado traveled about 3 1/2 miles.
Survey crews on Tuesday were also inspecting damage from Monday's storms in West Tennessee.
Contact staff writer Hannah Smith at hsmith@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6731.