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Article published Jan 7, 2009 Record rainfall pounds Blount; officials close some roads
By Darren Dunlap of The Daily Times Staff
Blount County officials closed roads and surveyed trouble spots as heavy rains pounded East Tennessee on Tuesday.
The county remained on a flood watch for Tuesday night and this morning. Blount County schools will close today due to wet roads, according to Alisa Teffeteller, spokeswoman for the school system.
A record amount of 1.84 inches of rainfall was recorded at McGhee Tyson Airport between midnight and 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Morristown. The previous record was 1.57 inches on Jan. 6, 1934.
Another inch or so of rainfall was anticipated overnight, but the weather service expected the rain to taper off around sunrise today.
Fotch Street and Lincoln Street were closed by Maryville public works crews because of rising waters from creeks. Several other city roads were under observation, said Tony Crisp, Maryville police chief.
As of Tuesday evening, wet roads hadn’t created a higher than normal rate of vehicle crashes in Maryville.
“We’ve not had an abundance of wrecks,” said Crisp.
The Blount County Highway Department prepared to barricade any roads made impassable by rising waters from creeks and ditches on Tuesday, according to Bill Dunlap, county highway superintendent.
Proffitt Springs Road, Blockhouse Road, Helton Road and Wilkinson Pike had all been reported as places where rising waters had crossed the asphalt. None had to be closed Tuesday evening, he said.
“It’s just soggy and wet,” said Dunlap. “The ditches are pretty full. The creeks are coming up.”
The Alcoa Police Department tended to two wrecks just after 5 p.m., including a head-on collision on Singleton Station Road and Cusick Road involving a pickup truck and a sedan. At least one person was taken by ambulance to the hospital, but officials didn’t have details by press time about the severity of injury or the number of people involved in the crash.
Daily Times reporter Iva Butler contributed to this story.