McCaysville police chief orders townwide lockdown

Our Ray Urena ended up making his way to one of the hardest hit areas. I think we're going to check in with Ray and see what's happening there. We're also hearing from the police chief there in McCaysville, in McCaysville. So I think we might listen in to what he's saying to us right now. The efforts of the men and women who were out here putting themselves in harm's way. We owe a great debt to those people that's come to help us in public safety. We're a tight knit community, as you all know and probably saw when we had the flood a few months back. Our local sheriff's offices, our police departments, our state and federal officials just come together anytime we need them and we're grateful for that. Sir, we heard about some reports over in L.A.J. and definitely water rescues over there. Do you have any intel on what's going on over in L.A.J. and the surrounding areas? I do not. I just know that we have We have a... A lot of flooding here inside the county as a whole, not just the city. I believe Blue Ridge and on the outskirts of both cities experienced a lot of flooding as well. But I did see that there was other counties, as you mentioned, that- Yes. Do you believe that this is worse than 1990 from what you have seen as far as water lines and things like that? So obviously I was not in public safety in 1990, but From the photos that I've seen, it was not as bad, but it's still catastrophic. Can you talk to the barriers that your crews are experiencing right now? So one of our major issues that we have with our crew is our city garage that houses our dump trucks, our tractors. This houses all the equipment that we have. We cannot get to it right now. So that is putting a huge burden upon our city crews as well. So equipment, literal equipment? Yes, equipment, our dump trucks, our skidsters, our tractors, everything that we use to clean up and use inside the city, we cannot get to. So what's the next few hours that we're going to do? Obviously, as the water keeps coming down, we're just going to continue doing our efforts to try to see and check on our residents inside those homes to make sure nobody was in those homes and left behind. go from there. Is there a coordinated effort with nearby counties to try to get equipment here? Yes, so we have several different counties and agencies that are here on scene that is actively helping us. So, lock up. And just to clarify, the Blackhawk from the Rangers, did they volunteer to come down the highway? I do not know. There's several people trying to get all this coordinated together, so, but I don't know who made that call. Sir, obviously the water is just receding like Really quickly, from your past experience and what you're observing today, when do you think the water will be gone? I don't know. We're hoping by 6 o'clock this afternoon that we can actively get our crews in. And we've started getting crews in, as you saw. Some of our roads are starting to open back up so we can get emergency personnel in there and check on these residents. I'm going to go ahead and But like I said earlier, we're keeping the town locked down until we know that it's completely safe. Have you been in touch with the Tennessee side? Do you know their situation? I have not. Can you speak to the extent of injuries from the people rescued? So we might find out what's going on here. So what I know, we did not have or sustain any major injuries. There was a few people took to the hospital. I believe a lot of that was more of hypothermia and just in shock. But from what we could tell, everybody looked to be okay. And what are you hearing from the people in your town? Have you been out there in the water? I have. Yep. And like I said, our comms is down. So I have no cell phone connection right now as we speak unless I hook to Wi-Fi. But it's devastating. It's devastating to our residents and our business owners, especially after, as he said, back in August we had another flash flood. It was not to this extent, but a lot of people came together and we've been cleaning the town for the past few months. And we're getting ready. I'm ready for Christmas, I have a lot of McKay's Bar events, our Christmas parade. So it's devastating. Thanks, Chief. Chief, I saw him being led away from the scene in handcuffs. He failed the attitude test. Good enough? Thanks, Chief. Yep, y'all take care.