All spillways are open Tuesday at the Chickamauga Dam following more than 5-inches of rain in the area over the past three days.Step aside, Seattle. You don’t impress Chattanooga.
In addition to its “Scenic City” moniker and its title as Outside Magazine’s “Best Town Ever,” Chattanooga could have added a title touting its propensity for precipitation during the first half of this week.
Four days of wet weather in the Tennessee Valley brought the Chickamauga Creek above flood stage and prompted the Tennessee Valley Authority to close the Chickamauga Dam’s navigation lock Wednesday morning after the wettest Dec. 1 in city history.
Local authorities had not received reports of serious flooding by Wednesday afternoon, but a flood warning remained in place for Chickamauga Creek, which was not expected to crest until middle of the day today, according to the National Weather Service.
A mudslide cut off access to a subdivision in Gilmer County, Ga., and residual flooding was expected to continue in north Georgia through Wednesday night. A flood warning remained in effect Wednesday night for the Sequatchie River, affecting parts of Bledsoe, Marion and Sequatchie counties.
Though there were no reports of flooding in Chattanooga, a traffic-snarling pothole on North Holtzclaw Avenue surfaced Tuesday and many area schools opened late, including Hamilton County Schools.
“As much rain as it was, it’s good that it was spread over four days instead of one day,” National Weather Service meteorologist George Mathews said from the agency’s Morristown, Tenn., office. “When this system was farther west, it was dumping this amount of rain in 24 hours, and it’s a lot more dangerous when that type of situation happens.”
Signal Mountain received the most rain in the four-day period, getting about 6.6 inches. Red Bank was next with 6.25 inches. In contrast, Chattanooga generally averages 5 inches for the entire month of November alone.
By the end of the day Tuesday, the city had recorded 58.69 inches of rain for the year, which is more than 6 inches above the annual average of 52.5 inches.
A CSX train passes over flooded lowlands near Audubon Acres Tuesday in East Brainerd.
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Seattle, often thought of as the country’s rainiest city, usually gets just 36-37 inches per year – it’s just spread out over many more days.
Tuesday’s 2.32 inches of rain broke the previous record of 2.14 inches for the first day of December that was set in 1982.
The excessive water was keeping the Tennessee Valley Authority busy.
The navigation lock at Chickamauga Dam will likely be closed “at least for the next few days,” TVA spokesman Travis Bickey said.
Bickey said it could take two weeks to get TVA’s storage reservoirs back to normal levels, as they hold back water so the river can handle the rainwater.
“As we speak, we are releasing about 1.3 million gallons of water per second out of the Kentucky Dam into the Ohio River,” Bickey said.
That figure is higher than normal, but not unprecedented, Bickey said.
Skies began to clear Wednesday afternoon, and no rain is in the forecast until Sunday evening, when there is a 20 percent chance.
Mathews added that the Tennessee River is about 8 feet higher than it was before the rain started late Saturday and early Sunday.
TVA is at least able to make use of some of it, though.
“Anytime we’ve got this, we’re going to take advantage of it and generate electricity with it,” Bickey said, adding that hydroelectric power comprises about 10-13 percent of the power that TVA generates.
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.