US storm toll rises to 30

City crews are set to begin hauling away residents' flood-ruined possessions in Nashville and were reopening some roads closed by high water in the aftermath of flooding that killed at least 30 people in the southern US.

As the rain-swollen Cumberland River continued to recede, Nashville's downtown remained without power and one of two water plants was disabled, but officials said progress was being made on both problems.

Mayor Karl Dean estimates the damage from weekend flooding could easily top $1 billion in Nashville alone.

Officials in Tennessee on Thursday reported the state's 20th death from the storm. The deaths of at least 30 people in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky were blamed on weekend flooding and tornadoes.

The new death was in Memphis, where police reported that Terrance Williams, 32, went missing Saturday after his car was disabled in rising floodwaters. Police found a body on Wednesday but haven't yet released the identity.

Two other people were missing in Nashville, and searches are under way for two in Kentucky.

Although the National Weather Service said the Cumberland had dropped about a metre from its crest of 3 1/2 metres on Sunday, water still covered the city's so-called tent city, home to about 140 homeless people under an interstate bypass along the riverbank. Several former residents walked the railroad tracks that bordered the high side of the encampment to see if they could recover any of their belongings.

"People have been trickling down here all day long," said Raphael McPherson, a 47-year-old resident who was at the site trying to find his cat, Jack. "They're trying to see how far the water has receded and if they can even go back and get anything, but it's a toxic area now."

McPherson and others said city officials had told them contaminants from the surrounding industrial area would make their campsite uninhabitable even after the water goes down.

- AP