‘We were racing the water’ SROs recount warning residents, rescues during Cocke County flooding

COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) — Two school resource officers in Cocke County are sharing their stories after helping to rescue people during the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene last month.

Sergeant Dan Williams and Lieutenant Danny Reece are school resource officers in Cocke County, and when Cocke County Schools closed on September 27th due to the impending weather , their Friday morning looked different three weeks ago.

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That morning, the pair went door-to-door warning people about the potential for flooding.

"Look the river is going to rise, you need to get out if you can, go somewhere else," said Reece.

The warnings quickly turned to rescue missions after Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis said that Walters Dam had failed. Later in the day, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency shared that they were informed that "the dam has not failed", however, the Pigeon and French Broad Rivers both rose significantly causing flooding.

"We were racing the water trying to get to people, as roads started getting washed away, high watered over," Williams said. "We couldn't travel trying to find ways around to still get to people."

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That evening Mathis declared a state of emergency and rescue missions on the ground became harder.

"It's hard to fathom that water was pulling up and looking like wakes in areas where you wouldn't imagine how water even got there," Williams said.

As the roads became impassable, a helicopter arrived from a neighboring county.

"When we finally got that helicopter from Knox County, myself and Lt. Reece happened to be right there and we were asked if we would go to helicopter see what we can figure out as far as how to get to places," Williams said.

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"The Edwina Community and that's when we saw people on top of the shipping containers we said alright, we'll get them," Reece said. "We couldn't land so we just had to hover beside the container and we loaded them up on the helicopter and took them to safety."

We're told the pair rescued 24 people.