At least three people have died as a result of widespread flooding in eastern Kentucky — two in Perry County and one in Knott County, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday afternoon.
“I think it’s going to end up being one of the biggest and deadliest floods we’ve had in Kentucky in at least a long time,” Beshear said. “Unfortunately, I expect double-digit deaths in this flood.”
[Original story, published at 12:29 p.m. ET]
Eastern Kentucky is experiencing “one of the worst and most devastating flooding events” in the commonwealth’s history Thursday after heavy overnight rains caused untold damage and forced some residents onto the roofs of their flooded homes to wait out rescue, the governor said.
“We expect loss of life. Hundreds will lose their homes, and this will be another event (where) it will take not months, but probably years, for many families to rebuild and recover,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. he said at a news conference Thursday morning in Frankfort.
Parts of eastern Kentucky received more than 8 inches of rain Wednesday through Thursday morning, overwhelming streams, creeks and terrain already saturated from earlier rain, the National Weather Service said. flood i flood advisories are in effect for parts of eastern kentucky until thursday afternoon.
“There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on rooftops, waiting to be rescued,” and “some people” were not identified, Beshear said Thursday morning, adding that he activated the National Guard to help with rescues and recovery
The Guard has identified people stuck on rooftops and “was making preparations to go in and get them out,” the state’s deputy adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Hal Lamberton, told the news conference, without elaborating where were these people
In the small creekside town of Hindman, waist-deep water turned a main road into a river before dawn, video from storm chaser Brandon Clement shows.
Barbara Wicker was worried about relatives in town, including five grandchildren, because water had surrounded their homes, she told Clement.
“I can’t get to it. I can’t get to 911 … There’s no help in sight,” Wicker told Clement early Thursday outside Hindman, a Knott County town about 130 miles to the south -east of Lexington.
“It’s getting really high in there — everybody’s stuck,” Hindman resident Kendra Bentley, who was also near a road, told Clement of the waters surrounding homes.
Swift-water rescues were reported Thursday in Kentucky’s Perry County, including in Chavies, a community of a few hundred people about 30 miles west of Hindman and 110 miles southeast of Lexington, say the weather service.
In the Perry County community of Buckhorn, deep water surrounded a school Thursday morning, forming a large brown lake around the building and swallowing all but the top of a playground. video posted on Facebook by Marlene Abner Stokely.
The National Guard was deploying helicopters and trucks that can move through water to deliver supplies and transport people, and Beshear also declared an emergency to help unlock other resources, he said. Fish and Wildlife workers were “with boats, working to make water rescues safe for their personnel,” he said.
Rescue areas included a school in Breathitt County, where a couple of staff members were stranded in an otherwise empty building, Beshear said. The Guard was preparing to rescue them, Lamberton said Thursday morning.
More than 24,000 power outages were reported in Kentucky as of 11:30 a.m., mostly in the east, according to PowerOutage.us.
Water service was also interrupted Thursday in parts of eastern Kentucky, in part because pipes burst in flood events and systems must be shut down for repairs, Beshear said. Water trucks were being sent to the region, he said.
Three state parks will be available to accommodate people who lost their homes, Beshear said.
More flooding is possible Thursday, especially in parts of eastern Kentucky, where another 1 to 3 inches is possible during the day, southern West Virginia and far southwest Virginia, the service said meteorological
“Please stay off the roads”
In the Breathitt County community of Jackson, water rushed past a home in the predawn darkness Thursday, taking a trash can and other debris with it, video shot by Deric Lostutter showed.
Breathitt County opened its courthouse as a shelter for those displaced by the flooding, the county’s emergency management agency said. Facebook.
“Many roads in the county are being covered with water and are impassable. Please stay off the roads if possible tonight,” the post said.
Rescue teams have been unable to reach several areas due to “quick water over the roads”, according to the emergency management agency. pointed out.
Swollen rivers and streams in the region poured onto the land.
Near Whitesburg, an eastern Kentucky community of more than 1,500 people near the Virginia state line, the North Fork Kentucky River topped its previous record height by 5 feet, according to Find out more. provisional automatic data from the United States Geological Survey.
At 10 a.m. Thursday, the gauge there read 20.91 feet; the previous record was 14.7 feet, set on January 29, 1957. The data is preliminary and will need to be revised, because elements can stick to the gauge and give false readings during major floods.
“Seemingly endless firehose” of moisture across much of the US
Thursday’s flooding in Kentucky comes two days after record rainfall caused widespread flash flooding in the St. Louis. It’s part of a “seemingly endless firehose of monsoonal and Gulf of Mexico moisture that is producing a conveyor belt of heavy rain and thunderstorms from the Southwest to the central Appalachians,” the Weather Prediction Center said. said thursday morning
The recent rains, with more to come, make additional flash flooding likely in parts of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and the central Appalachians over the next two days, the forecast center said.
There is a moderate (or level 3 out of 4) risk of excessive rain Thursday for parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and northern Tennessee, as well as parts of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, the forecast center. said.The climate crisis is supercharging the rains all over the world. The atmosphere can hold more moisture as temperatures rise, which can lead to higher rainfall rates and make record downpours more likely. Scientists are increasingly confident of the role played by the climate crisis in extreme weather conditions and have warned that these events become more intense and more dangerous with every fraction of a degree of warming.
CNN’s Chris Boyette, Monica Garrett, Sara Smart and Judson Jones contributed to this report
