A Tidal Wave of Water and at Least 22 Deaths as Floodwaters Ravage Rural Tennessee

An area of rivers, creeks and rolling woods had seen flooding before but nothing approximating the torrent of water that overwhelmed rural communities on Saturday.

WAVERLY, Tenn. — In one moment, Rickey Larkin saw the creek running behind his home spill over its banks. The next, he said, he was engulfed by an ocean. His pickup was carried away by the currents. Then, the water came surging into his home and rose shoulder high, forcing him, his wife and their cat to cling to a mattress as a life raft. “We prayed and we prayed it would go down,” Mr. Larkin recalled a day later, sitting outside a shelter on Sunday, his voice barely registering above a whisper. “We came about a foot from drowning. I thought we were gone.” At least 22 people have been killed and more than two dozen others remain missing on Sunday after a catastrophic flash flood swept through a rural area of rivers, creeks and rolling woods about 90 minutes west of Nashville, the authorities said. The floodwater vanished as quickly as it arrived, and left in its wake was a bewildering display of its fury and strength in a collection of rural communities in and around Humphreys County.