TN Valley Teams Credited for Nashville Flood Help

The flood waters that buried Nashville this spring are long gone but the memories are not.  At least 30 people died in those storms and the number would have likely been higher if not for some Hamilton County heroes.

Out of the thousands of calls for help during Nashville's floods, one in particular still haunts Deputy Fire Chief Danny Yates.  "One of my men is in the water trying to rescue a man hanging on a car," Yates remembers the scanner blaring, "and I need some help."  On the other end was a Nashville Fire Crew in trouble in the rising waters.

Help that morning came from the Hamilton County Speical Tactics and Rescue Services, or STARS.  By the time they arrived, three Nashville firefighters were in trouble.  The rescuers needed saving themselves.  "Somebody in this group reached out their hand," says yates nodding to the STARS members, "physically reached out their hand and grabbed their hand and saved their lives.  There's no other way around that."

That somebody was Jeff Graham.  His out-stretched fingers reeled in the first responders one by one.  "We were sure we were going to get them," says Graham.  "We weren't leaving without them."  STARS Captain Greg Banks agrees.  "All the training that we've pulled off over the years, it came true."  Banks was piloting that boat in the driving rain.  The flood waters were some of the roughest he's ever seen yet they continued to pluck an unknown number of people out of high water for the next 15 hours.  "We'd drop victims off at the (emergency) trucks and go back at it."

For that, Yates says he couldn't just call and say thanks.  He had to be here for a hand-shake with each and every member that traveled to the Music City back in May.  Along with Graham and Banks, Chief Jim Poplin, Assistant Chief Clay Ingle, Assistant Chief Buddy Kamin, Bren Luke, Steve Peters, Chris Peters and Keith Pruett were honored.  "There is absolutely no way that I can adequately thank you," Yates says, "there is no way."

But that's what this team does.  Where it seems like there is no hope, they come through.
And three Nashville firefighters are living proof of that.

After honoring the Hamilton County STARS team, the Nashville firefighters traveled to Cleveland, where they thanked members of the Bradley County fire department for their work in the floods as well.