WRES rescues four in Clay County

Waldens Ridge Emergency Services volunteers rushed to Clay County earlier this month to help rescue flood victims in Celina, Tenn., a small town nestled between a large creek and the Cumberland River about 30 minutes northeast of Nashville.

Volunteer Sib Evans said WRES member Patricia Wagner-Stewart, a ropes rescue instructor for the Tennessee Association of Rescue Squads, asked if WRES had any volunteers willing to travel to Clay County, where rescue squads had been working around the clock for nearly 48 hours to pull remaining residents from the rising waters,. Most other squads in the region had been called into service in or around Nashville, and few resources had been allocated for the smaller counties, he said.

“We were confident we could get enough people with the expertise necessary,” said Evans.

After plowing through the necessary red tape, Evans said he set off for middle Tennessee with WRES members Andrew Akridge and Robert Clark, who the had the level of training required for the job and were able to take the next few days off work.

Before reaching the Emergency Operations Center in Clay County to receive their assignment, he said they were diverted to a rescue mission at a mobile home in Celina where five people were trapped and surrounded by 8 to 12 feet of water.

“The same five people were asked on two earlier occasions to evacuate but chose not to,” said Evans. “They waited until it was pitch-black dark and the water had risen significantly.”

The WRES volunteers were paired with members of the Clay County Rescue Squad, who had already made an attempt to rescue the flood victims with a flat-bottom boat, but were unsuccessful due to the rising water of the creek covering a bridge between the volunteers and the stranded individuals.

When they arrived on the scene, the rescue mission was deemed too dangerous due to the volume of water and the group went to the command center to come up with a plan of action.

Accompanied by a Clay County police officer and a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Officer, the WRES volunteers loaded into a motor boat and navigated the swollen creek to reach the five victims in the mobile home.

“The greatest hazards were the obstacles in the water,” said Evans. “Not knowing the terrain made it more difficult.”

He said they were able to remove four of the five stranded individuals from the mobile home, the fifth choosing to remain in the trailer to “wait it out.”

“It was a bit of a challenge and could have been fatal to someone, but wasn’t,” Evans said of the rescue mission. “There were no injuries involved that I know of.”