Propane tank catches fire amid historic McCaysville flooding

In the Fannin and Gilmer Counties area, heavy rain has washed out roads and flooded homes, leaving residents completely stranded. The town of McCaysville has declared an emergency and no one is allowed in or out. Good day's Mark Teichner joins us now live from the staging area where rescue crews have been working hard now for hours. Mark, good morning. Yeah, we've had river flooding. Now we've got a fire. Take a look. You can see that is a propane tank that has caught on fire in the flooded areas here of McCaysville. They're telling us that they're just going to basically let that thing burn itself out. They are hopeful that it's not going to cause any more damage, at least for now. But that was one of the reasons that they pushed us back. You might recall we were a lot closer to the river before, but that because of our safety, they decided that they wanted to sort of push it back. Everyone back a little bit. Let that fire burn itself out. As far as the river, the Toccoa River itself is concerned, it has crested. So that is good news. They've actually seen it starting to recede a little. They say maybe down a couple, maybe as much as three feet. But it did reach a record level of 18 feet. The last time it had had that type of flooding was back in 1990. But as a result of this particular flooding, it's going to take some time. As far as river rescues are concerned, they are continuing. They're not sure how many that they have done exactly, But they think somewhere in the neighborhood of 30. Thirty to forty people have been brought to safety. They do have reports of people that are still waiting to be rescued, including potentially some folks who might have been on their roofs as they were trying to avoid the rising waters that came out of nowhere, according to the chief. This is something where you can imagine these folks who have been rescued are just glad to be safe and sound and on dry ground. I got dressed and went outside the water was this deep and I couldn't get my truck out so I had to leave my truck then the sheriff's deputies knocked on the front door and said you need to evacuate now and he said you probably have to wade through water but by the time my wife got dressed and I got the animals They had to send a boat for us. We're actively trying to water rescue people. We still got several people trapped in homes that we're trying to get to, and the water keeps rising, so just bear with us as much as you can and please say a prayer for them and their families. How many... Chief tells us that they had a flash flood that took place in August here in McKaysville. And get this, they had just recently reopened the city office buildings, including the police department and the post office, only reopened last week. And now they are under feet and feet of water again. It's going to be some time before they're able to clean all this mess up. But first thing they need to do is have that river finally recede fully so they can get those folks. To safety that need to be gotten from their particular homes. We're going to stay on top of this, as you can imagine, throughout the morning. But for now, that is the latest from here in McAdelville, Georgia, right on the Tennessee state line. I'm Mark Teichner for Good Day Atlanta. All right, Mark, thank you.