At least 21 dead, 45 missing after heavy rain pounds Tennessee

At least 21 people were dead and 20 others were missing after heavy rain and torrential floods overwhelmed parts of Tennessee, damaging homes, toppling trees and upending cars, officials said Sunday.

Twenty of the deaths were in Waverly, a small city about 75 miles west of Nashville, said Grant Gillespie, chief of the city’s public safety department.

“We’ve experienced a devastating loss,” he said at a news conference.

The number of people unaccounted for dropped from 50 earlier Sunday to 20 later in the day as first responders continued searching. On its Facebook page, the public safety department listed the names of the missing and asked the public for help finding them.

Several of the people on the list are children, the department said.