Caryville battening down the hatches

CARYVILLE – With boats and buoys prepared, the Caryville City Hall is among several businesses fortifying themselves with sandbags, and residents are shipping out or battening down the hatches before the next anticipated wave of flooding.

“It hasn’t been this bad since ’94,” said Caryville Fire Chief/City Engineer Gene Forehand. “And it’s been coming in steady, for example, at 2 a.m. there wasn’t any water in the River Stop’s parking lot and by 5 a.m. water was making it’s way there, now they’re having to sandbag the entrance.”

A good number of streets had to be blocked off, as many of them have streams of rapid moving water running several yards across and several feet deep and several completely submerged under water.

These include Gum Creek on River Road, River Road, Roche Lane, Swindle Road, Mattox Springs Road, Williams Road, Palmer Avenue, Sycamore Road, Church Street, Railroad Street, Waits Avenue, Pate Pond Road, Caryville 1-10 exit, Monroe Street, Aycock Street, Parrish Road and Works Road.

Roadblocks have been established and are enforced by local law enforcement with citations for roadblock evasion.

The post office is closed because the access road is under water.

“We’ve had several people go around the road blocks and speed down the road not knowing what they were going to hit,” Forehand said. “We almost lost a few because of it and now law enforcement is really cracking down on those drivers.”

Forehand explained that in preparation, equipment had to be moved from the fire house next to the community center because it is in a possible flood zone.

“There are numerous flood zones in Caryville and a multitude of possible flood zones that, if the predictions are correct, will be in high water by this weekend,” he said. “There are still a lot of people, even down the roads that are already flooded, that are determined to wait it out.”

He strongly suggested against anyone staying in areas with even the potential of flooding.

“There are people moving their stuff out now just to be on the safe side,” he said. “But there are some who are having to move what can be salvaged because the water went farther than they originally thought.”

Inmates were evacuated from the Caryville work camp Tuesday morning.

New Hope Fire House at Hwy 2 and 179A opened at 5 p.m. Monday as a Red Cross shelter. For more information call 547-1112.

More coverage online and in the paper.