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A 7-year-old girl from Georgia was killed when a large maple tree "approximately 2 feet in diameter" came crashing down on her family's campsite in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, the National Park Service said. The tree fell early Wednesday amid a period of heavy rain that has pounded the area, prompting park officials to close many trails and roads that course through the popular tourist destination.
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Rangers responded to the scene in the Elkmont Campground, a 200-site campsite about 8 miles from Gatlinburg, Tenn.
The girl's father and two other siblings were not injured, and the girl's identity was not immediately released, the NPS said.
Officials said it's unclear what caused the tree to fall in the middle of the night. Heavy rain has deluged the region for much of July, saturating the ground.
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Park officials last week ordered several roads and trails temporarily closed in the Greenbrier section of the park after about 3 inches of rain fell in the region, damaging parts of the park and causing rivers to overflow. That was on top of the nearly 9 inches of rain heavy rainstorms dumped over several hours on July 12, the park service said.
In some spots, rescue crews said the water reached as high as a picnic table, and the rushing water was so strong that it washed an SUV into a creek and slammed it up against a tree, WYFF-TV reported.
Earlier this month, emergency responders from the park and Gatlinburg Fire and Rescue rescued a 13-year-old boy from rising floodwaters in the Chimneys Picnic Area of the park, Deputy Superintendent Alan Sumeriski told the Charlotte Observer.
Park officials have issued a public warning about unstable trail and road conditions due to oversaturation, noting that "conditions remain unpredictable."
The rain is not expected to let up anytime soon. AccuWeather meteorologists are forecasting more rounds of showers and thunderstorms through the weekend from Colorado to North Carolina, with localized flash flooding possible every day.
