A woman was killed on Sunday in Tennessee as she attempted to rescue her son, who had been swept away in high waters, a local sheriff’s office said, as a flash flood threat was in effect for parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, where four other deaths were recorded.
The Grainger County Sheriff’s Department in Tennessee said Mary Evelyn Nicole Manning-Kellione, 39, was killed on Sunday after she went to rescue her son after rising water carried him into a culvert.
“The son was able to surface at the other end and came to safety when he realized his mother was in the water,” the office said in a statement. “Rescue personnel located the individual lodged inside the culvert.”
The National Weather Service (NWS) Prediction Center had upgraded the flood threat on Sunday for parts of Kentucky and Tennessee to a level 3 out of 4 “moderate risk.”
Kentucky residents had been bracing for another round of relentless rain a day after flash flooding killed at least four people and the governor declared a state of emergency.
The heaviest rain had been expected in southeast Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, including Owensboro and Somerset, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
