Water Rescue on Tulip Grove Road in Hermitage. (WTVF)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Strong thunderstorms are dumping torrential rain in Tennessee and flash flooding is occurring.

On Nashville's east edge, firefighters rescued a pickup truck driver whose vehicle stalled near the Hermitage -- the home of former President Andrew Jackson.

Video shown live on WTVF-TV showed firefighters clipping the driver to a rope they ran to the swamped truck shortly before dawn Friday and walking him through rushing knee-deep water to safety. About 7 inches of rain fell overnight in that neighborhood.

As many as 12,000 customers were without power at the height of the storm-caused outage early Friday.

Lightning is believed to have started a fire that damaged a church in Nashville and wind blew part of the roof off a plant in Portland, near the Kentucky border.

------

Information from: WTVF-TV, http://www.newschannel5.com