EAI Community :Storms bring flash flooding to Dollywood amusement park in Tennessee

2025-05-03 11:44:33source:verdicoincategory:News

PIGEON FORGE,EAI Community  Tenn. (AP) — Strong thunderstorms brought flash flooding to Dolly Parton’s Dollywood in east Tennessee.

Park workers and the Pigeon Forge police and fire departments directed guests to safety on Sunday afternoon, and one minor injury was reported, park officials said in a statement. The amusement park said it was supporting guests whose vehicles were affected and cleanup crews were deployed. The park was opening at noon Monday and the park’s Splash Country, which wasn’t affected, opened at its regular time.

A road collapse closed McCarter Hollow Road at the entrance to Dollywood on Sunday night, according to the Pigeon Forge Police Department.

JeMiale McKinney of Knoxville and his wife and two daughters are season pass holders and headed to the park Sunday. Sometimes, when there is a threat of bad weather, that is the best time to go because many people will leave and once the weather clears, you get shorter ride times, McKinney said.

However, it was pouring buckets and within 10 minutes the entrance was blocked. People could see that it wouldn’t be worth it to drive through the water that was thigh-deep in some places, McKinney said.

RELATED COVERAGE Disney reaches tentative agreement with California theme park workersSwedish officials say weak replacement parts caused a fatal roller coaster derailment last yearWith deal done, Disney withdraws lawsuit, ending last conflict with DeSantis and his appointees

“We got trapped in the parking lot faster than we thought,” he said. They were stuck there for two hours until a crew broke down a fence so people could get out.

“I was surprised about how calm people were,” he said.

Nearly 5 inches of rain fell in the area in about an hour, Dollywood spokesperson Wes Ramey said in an email.

“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 said.

The park will evaluate the response to determine whether any changes are needed, he said.

More:News

Recommend

Paula Abdul settles lawsuit with former 'So You Think You Can Dance' co

Paula Abdul and Nigel Lythgoe have settled their lawsuit a year after the allegations sent shockwave

FDA expands frozen strawberries recall over possible hepatitis A contamination

Better think twice before consuming any foods this summer made from frozen strawberries.The Food and

Amazon Web Services outage leads to some sites going dark

Amazon's cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services is experiencing an outage, according to DownDetect