Tennessee flood response aided by out-of-town cellphones

By JONATHAN MATTISE
Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When deadly floods knocked out all communications but radio in rural Tennessee last weekend, emergency officials had a new tool at their disposal. Bobby Brown is director of Humphrey County’s 911 center, located in the hard-hit city of Waverly. He noted on Thursday that he was able to get six cellphones from police in the neighboring city of McEwen during the floods and had calls temporarily directed to them. Using the phones as backup is a new procedure that officials put in place after the Christmas Day 2020 bombing in Nashville. The explosion damaged an AT&T facility, causing service outages in the South.