Flash Flood in Shelby County, Tennessee

Very heavy rain produced devastating flash flooding across Northwestern Shelby County. Up to 16 inches of rain fell causing widespread flooding. Millington was the hardest hit area where a levee holding back water from Big Creek was topped. As many as 200-300 homes in base housing at the Naval Support Activity Base were flooded. Numerous people had to be rescued. Four to five feet of water covered the navy base. Some locations around Millington were covered by as much as 8 feet of water. All roads in Millington were closed. Power outages occurred due to the flood waters. Raleigh, Frayser and Bartlett also received widespread flooding where water was as deep as vehicles windshields. One fatality occurred in Raleigh as a vehicle became stranded in flood waters. Water covered some streets in Downtown Memphis with water as high as vehicles wheel wells. In total, 576 homes received some kind of flood damage. Of those, 77 were completely destroyed. Eight businesses were damaged and 403 mobile homes were completely destroyed. Several other buildings including apartment complexes were damaged as well. The flash flooding event transitioned into a flood event where rivers rose rapidly spilling over their banks.

An upper level disturbance slowly approached the Mid-South during the evening of April 30th, 2010 as a cold front became stationary to the west. This pattern remained in place through the evening hours of May 2nd, 2010. South to southwest winds pumped warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and created a very unstable atmosphere. Showers and thunderstorms developed in association with the front during the early evening hours and moved east into Eastern Arkansas shortly before midnight. Additional thunderstorms occurred in association with the upper level disturbance. Due to the unstable atmosphere, thunderstorms quickly became severe producing large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding. The severe weather evolved into an outbreak by May 1st and 2nd. Historic rainfall and flash flooding in addition to large hail and damaging winds occurred during the early morning hours of May 1st with several tornadoes occurring during the afternoon hours of May 1st to early morning hours of May 2nd.