Latest news with #CandacePayne
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
From Snow to Floods: Clarksville endures extreme weather, breaks rainfall record
Clarksville has exceeded its year-to-date rainfall in the first six months of the year, with more rain and storms expected this week. Clarksville residents are no strangers to the extremes of Mother Nature, facing snow and ice last winter, tornadoes this spring and multiple flooding incidents this year alone. The National Weather Service is expecting storms and rain to come through Montgomery County beginning June 5, possibly bringing yet another wet weekend to the area. As a result, the city is reaching a new record of rainfall as another rainy week adds to the inches fallen this year. Within the first five months of the year, Clarksville-Montgomery County has experienced all Mother Nature can offer, with more to come. From icy and snowy grounds in February, flooding in February and May and a couple of EF-0 tornadoes in May, In less than months, Clarksville received 37.44 inches of rain, 17.95 inches more than normal for this time of year. Within two months of the year, some Clarksville-Montgomery County residents were evacuated from their homes as the area received around six inches of rain in just 24 hours between Feb. 15 and 16. The Cumberland River peaked just below major flood level at 51.27 ft. According to the National Weather Service in Nashville, the total rainfall ranked No. 2 on the one-day rainfall totals for Clarksville. Just days later, Clarksville, along with most of Middle Tennessee, was placed under a Winter Storm Watch as temperatures dropped. Residents woke up Feb. 19 to icy roads and nearly five inches of snow blanketing the ground. Nearly two months later, Spring made its debut with severe weather bringing a second flood wave. The April flooding arrived quickly, with nearly 10 inches of rain falling over a weekend, causing more neighborhoods to experience flooding and necessitating evacuations. The Cumberland River, which reaches flood stages at 46 feet, peaked at 50.54 feet and the Red River, with a flood stage of 30 feet, crested at 39.30 feet. With two flooding events in less than three months, it is no surprise that the area has exceeded its year-to-date amount, as city and county residents are left to deal with the damage left behind. "I'm a sitting duck," said 37-year-old Candace Payne as she watched her home slowly flood for the second time in three months. Payne bought her four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on Elberta Drive in 2020, thinking she was buying her forever home. Instead, nonstop rainfall has led to her house flooding three times in just two years, twice in 2025. Other residents like Ashley Royalle Willis blame poor infrastructure for the flooding of her home. Willis and her husband bought their home on Gaylewood in October 2022. With heavy downpours flooding her basement with cow manure, water, and a flooded HVAC unit, the family is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Willis said she believes the expansion of Barksdale Elementary School in 2023 could have led to the flooding of her home. "My insurance told me that if a pipe burst in the basement, it's covered, but natural water isn't," she said. "Even if we sold this one, we would have to turn around and buy another one." In the proposed 2025-26 city budget, Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts is planning to "address immediate needs," including the flooding residents are facing with stormwater drainage. Pitts is calling stormwater drainage a 'priority' by using different approaches to address the problem. One, the Gas and Water Department will hire a consultant to develop a Storm Water Utility. This position will take the lead on managing the stormwater infrastructure that is currently under the Street Department. Another is changing codes to limit heavy rainfall on homes, residential and commercial structures. Kenya Anderson is a reporter for The Leaf-Chronicle. She can be contacted at kanderson@ or on X at kenyaanderson32. Sign up for the Leaf-Chronicle to support local journalism at This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Clarksville surpasses year-to-date rainfall totals due to flooding
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chewbacca Mom Took the Internet by Storm. 9 Years Later, She Reveals How It 'Drastically' Changed Her Life (Exclusive)
Candace Payne, known to millions as "Chewbacca Mom," turned a simple, spontaneous Facebook Live video into one of the most-watched viral moments of 2016. What started as a lighthearted update on her socials quickly turned into a global sensation, including an invitation to appear on with James Corden and a surprise name-drop in Disney's . She talks to PEOPLE about the viral moment, nine years later. May the Fourth be with you!In honor of Star Wars Day, we celebrate the unexpected moments that have left a lasting impact on the culture. One such moment? An impromptu Facebook Live in 2016 that turned one woman into a viral sensation. At the time, Facebook had just debuted its 'Facebook Live' feature, allowing users to broadcast live videos through the app. It was a different world back then, as the era of social media and connectivity was just beginning to flourish. As Candace Payne, now known to millions as "Chewbacca Mom," used the new feature to document her genuine excitement over a Kohl's purchase in 2016, her whole life changed forever. View this post on Instagram A post shared by C A N D A C E P A Y N E (@candacepayne) For Payne, who was celebrating her birthday week at the time, she initially posted the now-viral clip as a way to have a good laugh with her "Mom friends." 'It wasn't an idea of this hitting the masses. This [was] actually, 'Hey, I'm in the moment [and] I've got about five minutes before I have to adult and pick up my kids from school,'' Payne tells PEOPLE exclusively. 'I didn't even know that privacy settings were a thing that you could switch from public to private. All of those things were new integrations for this lady, who's a stay-at-home mom, posting pictures of her kids, posting what I'm doing and what I'm eating in the middle of the day.' The viral video of Payne, which shows her putting on her Chewbacca mask and laughing hysterically in her car, ended up being the most-watched Facebook Live video of 2016.'This was the beginning of us trying to be social with social media and having a live kind of integration [and] it felt foreign,' she says. 'It was just this divine setup of God saying, 'I'm going to introduce you to the world and they're going to see what kind of person you are, through this platform that really doesn't have any kind of attraction to it yet.' That was four minutes laughing in my car.''When I go back and look at that moment, it just felt like two things are so paramount and what happened was authentic and it was relatable,' she adds. 'I feel like that is the common core piece for what the world really wants in social media again - we want things that are authentic.'The intensity of going viral overnight is something few can prepare for. A moment that felt personal and spontaneous for Payne as she quickly became a global sensation, catapulting her into the spotlight in ways she never anticipated.'I felt like I had the curtain pulled back on the Wizard of Oz,' she admits. 'I felt like I got to see behind the internet, the inner workings of the wires, if you will, the gears when you walk inside and you're like, 'What's going on back here?''The mother-of-two recalls her reaction when she realized her viral moment was mentioned in Disney's Ralph Breaks the Internet. In the film, Ralph is brainstorming topics that do well online— and among them is "Chewbacca Dad." "It's like Chewbacca Mom, but a daddy," as one of Yesss' assistants puts it.'I'm sitting here going, 'Am I a part of Disney canon in some weird way [and] now my kids are going to watch a movie, [and] my grandkids are going to see that [my] viral moment made it into a Disney film?'' she adds. 'That's part of it, where you feel like 'What just happened? What in the world just happened?''The media frenzy that followed was surreal. After the video went viral, Payne was invited by James Corden to do a Carpool Karaoke with him and J.J. Abrams. It was a whirlwind that landed her in Los Angeles within just a few days. "I know it's proverbial, but it has taken me about nine years to 'unmask' and to really figure out who I am behind that moment to where I am healthy, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically," she says. "I've never been in the physical health that I'm [currently] in." The intense spotlight of sudden fame had its highs — like the thrill of global recognition — but also its lows. Given the inevitable complexities of it all, Payne recommends one thing: "Don't read the comments, and you don't need to worry about anybody else but yourself. And I really do mean that." It wasn't long before Payne realized she had to set firm boundaries, not just for herself but for her family, as a way to protect their well-being amidst the exhilarating but overwhelming attention. Family is her top priority, and protecting that foundation was essential. 'At that moment, I had a really young family. My kids were in elementary school, and I was a stay-at-home mom as my only profession, but I'd started feeling that shift with them going into elementary school that maybe I wanted to work again, but I didn't know what I wanted to do," she recalls. "I was like, 'I think I can do that. I think I can stay authentic,' but my family has been literally the most supportive, the most. It's us and everything else takes a backseat. There's nothing else that matters as much.'Payne and her husband recently celebrated 24 years of marriage, and through it all, their family has been a constant source of strength and stability.'He's been my strength, but we also knew at that moment that it was very public, and they did not ask for that,' she adds. 'I've stopped including them in as many photos [because] I have teenagers that are learning how to drive now and that are completely different than when the world met me. There are a lot of things that we reserve for just us to keep us healthy.' Read the original article on People
