By WKMS/WPLN
Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and a dozen officials took two National Guard Blackhawk helicopters to Jackson and back Monday afternoon. Minutes after the governor landed at the 118th Airlift Wing at Berry Field in Nashville, he tolled off the list of blows stuck to Tennessee in two days of unprecedented rain.
"This is obviously a major, major event. It is very clear from the air the extent of the damage. This is going to be a long time in cleaning up."
The Davidson County airport had measured 13.5 inches of rain Saturday and Sunday. Other areas west and south of Nashville experienced more. Fourteen people had died.
Tennessee Emergency Management Spokesperson Tisha Calacrese-Benton says there are now 19 confirmed fatalities, among them: 10 in Davidson, 2 in Stewart, and one in Montgomery County. Governor Bredesen says resources have been mobilized to help the displaced.
"We still have about 30 shelters open across the state, with a little over a thousand, about eleven hundred people in the shelters, five other shelters are on stand-by."
Thousands of Tennesseans remain without power.
"We still have, about, in the state, about 22,000 people without power, thirteen thousand of them, thirteen-four, are in Davidson County, about 4,000 up in Montgomery County, 2,500 in Montgomery and Hardin, 1,200 in Dickson and 900 in Shelby County."
The Cumberland River at Nashville is ten feet above their 40 foot flood stage. In Clarksville, the river is above 62 feet, 16 feet above flood stage. Levels are expected to begin to go down sometime today.