Thunderstorms rocked portions of eastern Tennessee on Sunday, dumping heavy rain and flash flooding to Dolly Parton’s amusement park, Dollywood. At least one person was injured, officials said.
It wasn’t clear on Monday morning exactly how much water had inundated the park or the extent of the damage it caused, but the park’s public relations director, Wes Ramey, told CBS News that storms had dumped almost five inches of rain onto Dollywood over the course of just an hour. Ramey described the situation as “an unprecedented flooding event.”
Video recorded inside Dollywood and submitted to CBS News affiliate WVLT during Sunday’s deluge appeared to show groups of people wading through knee-deep water in some places. The police department in Pigeon Forge, where Dollywood is located, said in a statement on Sunday night on social media that McCarter Hollow Road, at the park’s entrance, had collapsed and was closed to traffic. There was an alternate route that people in the area could use instead, according to police.
Ramey confirmed that Dollywood was scheduled to reopen at 12 p.m. local time on Monday, as park officials had said in an initial statement on their response to the flooding Sunday evening.
“This afternoon, Sunday, July 28, a strong thunderstorm caused flash flooding at Dollywood,” Dollywood Parks and Resorts said in the earlier statement. “With the assistance of Pigeon Forge Police and Fire Departments, park personnel directed guests to safety during the storm. At this time, one minor injury has been reported.”
Officials didn’t elaborate on the nature of that injury. They said Dollywood was “supporting guests whose vehicles were affected” by the weather and crews had been deployed to clean up the area.
“While the volume of rain was difficult for both the park’s and the city’s infrastructure to manage, the fact we have only one minor injury illustrates how well our hosts handled the situation and how well our guests followed their directions,” Ramey told CBS News about an hour before Dollywood was set to reopen. “We will evaluate the response to determine if any changes are needed moving forward, but we are proud of our maintenance and operations teams for their hard work that allowed us to reopen less than 24 hours after an unprecedented flooding event like this one.”
The park will honor guests’ Sunday tickets for admission on Monday, or provide rain checks for a future visit, Ramey said.
The National Weather Service in Morristown issued a flash flood warning for Pigeon Forge that remained in place until around 11 p.m. on Sunday. Many roads around Dollywood that shut down because of the storms, including in nearby Sevier County, reopened around the same time the weather service lifted its warning.
The Sevier County Emergency Management Agency said Monday that water had receded overnight on most roads in the area but encouraged residents to be mindful of potential debris while driving. The agency had previously reported “significant flooding” in parts of the county that was still happening as late as 8:30 p.m. on Sunday. At the time, the agency also said there was a mudslide, a sinkhole and multiple downed trees linked to the weather.
This story originally published to CBS News on Monday, July 29, at 11:16 a.m. ET.
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