Mother who drowned in Tennessee posted video of flood just before she died

‘We are being flooded right now in Waverly, Tennessee. Really scary,’ Linda Almond wrote

Linda Almond, 55, died in the flooding of Waverly, Tennessee (WKRN)

A woman caught in the deadly flooding of Waverly, Tennessee, posted footage of the disaster just before she drowned.

Linda Almond, 55, was trapped in a house with her 37-year-old son, Tommy, as the water rose around them. As the situation worsened, Ms Almond broadcasted a live video of her surroundings on Facebook.

“We are being flooded right now in Waverly, Tennessee. Really scary,” Ms Almond says in the video, showing the river of floodwater rushing past her window.

“I think something just hit the side of the house,” a male voice, presumably Tommy’s, can be heard saying.

Ms Almond then sounds increasingly nervous.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” she says repeatedly.

The mother and son later climbed onto their roof for safety, family members told WKRN, but the roof collapsed and they fell into the river of floodwater, which began carrying them away. Tommy was later rescued, but Ms Almond did not survive. Her body was recovered on Sunday.

The massive floods that battered Tennessee this past weekend left 22 people dead and at least 10 missing. About 120 homes were also destroyed, in some cases ripped out of the ground by the rushing floodwaters.

One of those houses was the one the Almonds were trapped in.

“My brother’s house was lifted off its foundation,” Victoria Almond, Tommy’s sister, told The Washington Post.

After her mother and brother were swept away, Victoria explained, they grabbed onto a utility pole for safety. But some time later, another unmoored house began floating toward them. To avoid getting hit, they let go.

“My brother went down for about 45 seconds underwater and when he came back up, he couldn’t find Mom,” Victoria told the paper. “That was when they let go. It was the last time he saw her.”

Survivors assess the damage after the disastrous flooding in Tennessee (Andrew Nelles/The Tennessean/AP)

Tommy eventually found a roof that was stable enough to stand on, and he waited there for the storm to end. When the flooding was over, he walked along the street and managed to borrow a pedestrian’s phone, which he used to call his sister.

Victoria said she could tell right away her mother was no longer alive.

“I could hear it in his voice, the way he described it and his tone of voice – I already knew,” she said. “It wasn’t confirmed, but I already knew.”

Victoria remembers Linda Almond as a kind, non-judgemental person.

“She taught me to always have an open mind and see both sides of the coin,” she said.

Smashed cars sit in a heap after the deadly flooding in Tennessee (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)