Officials provide updates to fatal wreck, damaged main water line in Benton County
UPDATE (11/29/24): Camden Water lifts boil advisory
BENTON COUNTY, Tenn. — We have additional information regarding the crash and water incident in Benton County Monday evening.
It was just after 5 p.m. when the Benton County Sheriff’s Department got the word of the incident that occurred.
Sheriff Kenny Christopher talked to us about how the response from the officers, the fire department, the dispatch and everyone that was involved was incredible and the response time was very quick. We were able to speak with him Tuesday morning about the details of what happened.
“Somebody crossed the line there — sideswipe — truck driver lost control, obviously of the truck, and hit two vehicles head on after that. So there was four vehicles involved total. Burst into flames up there on the scene in the road,” said Sheriff Christopher.
According to a preliminary report from the Tennessee Highway Patrol, a victim from the crash has been identified as 39-year-old Evan Christopher Jones from Tennessee. Jones was killed in the four-vehicle collision. Only one person, who was driving a Buick LaCrosse, was reported injured. Charges are pending the outcome of the investigation for the semi-truck driver. No other details are available at this time.
Since Monday night John Beasley, who is the superintendent of Camden’s Water Department, has been giving many updates on the situation including a boil water notice. We were able to speak with him Tuesday morning to get more information about what’s going on.
“TEMA has a hazmat team that’s coming from Illinois to mitigate all the hazards that remain on site. From my understanding, it was am anhydrous ammonia tanker that is still on the scene,” said Beasley.
Many cases of water had been donated and were being distributed to people Tuesday morning. Beasley told us a little bit about what that situation looked like.
“Right now, we have an emergency water distribution center set up at the old Walmart center here in Camden. It was a good location with a lot of room for the public to come here and pick up water. We’re issuing one case of water per household,” said Beasley.
Beasley went on to tell us that, in such short notice, it took much collaboration between so many different departments, businesses and volunteers to get this going. Beasley also said that once the tanker was cleared, his team can go in to make the repairs.
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