WAVERLY, Tenn. (WTVF) — CSX Transportation is fighting back against a lawsuit pointing the finger at the company for the deadly flooding in Waverly last year.
Catastrophic flooding hit the city of Waverly and the surrounding Humphreys County area on the morning of August 21, 2021 — killing 20 people. The youngest victims were 7-month-old twins.
The families of 11 of those killed filed a lawsuit earlier this year against CSX, alleging the railroad should be held accountable for its role in leading to the flash flooding. The lawsuit claims CSX's train line created an unintentional levy, but when the culverts became clogged with debris over time, the levy broke and unleashed a wall of water.
Lawyers for CSX claim the lawsuit failed to acknowledge the historic rainfall and instead is placing the blame on the railroad bridge. The company filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in September.
"This lawsuit seeks to turn a natural disaster of historic proportion into a tort suit," the motion reads. "Plaintiffs now seek to find their culprit not in 'record-breaking torrential rainfall and flash flooding' but in a private railroad, CSX Transportation, Inc."
On that day, 17 inches of rain fell in the county, shattering the state's 24-hour rainfall record.
Landowners James and Sherry Hughey were also named in the original lawsuit, which stated they were negligent for not warning emergency responders about the rising water and for allowing CSX to store debris on their land.
"In particular, the Complaint, striving mightily to never mention the historic rainstorm and its breathtaking speed and volume, seeks to shift focus toward one sliver of the resulting devastation in the form of CSXT’s Trace Creek Bridge—a railroad bridge in place for almost 80 years carrying rail tracks across the Trace Creek located to the east of downtown Waverly," the filing reads.
CSX says the company has no duty to protect the public from flooding.
