Kentucky floods leave at least eight dead and hundreds homeless

At least eight people died in flash floods in eastern Kentucky (USA) after heavy rains, state governor Andy Beshear said Thursday – an event he called “one of the most significant and deadly floods” in history. of the community.

“This is an ongoing natural disaster, with more rain predicted that could make the situation worse. The death toll has painfully risen to 8,” Beshear wrote on social media.

The governor said officials from the National Guard, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, state police and local emergency management agencies are responding to the crisis.

Parts of Kentucky received more than 220 millimeters of rain between Wednesday (27) and Thursday (28), according to estimates by the National Weather Service and local observers.

Rain in eastern Kentucky has overwhelmed creeks, streams and soil already saturated from previous rains, the weather service said. Flood warnings in eastern parts of the state have been extended, in some cases until next Monday (8/1).

Additional amounts of rain are expected through Friday night (29). “We’re watching it very closely and it won’t be long before it causes some additional flooding problems,” Dustin Jordan, of the Weather Service’s Jackson office, said. CNN .

The rains caused untold damage to homes in the central part of the state and forced some residents to climb onto the roofs of their residences to await rescue, the governor told a news conference.

Belinda Asher, a resident of eastern Kentucky, said she received a flash flood alert on her phone at 1:15 am. “By 2am, everything I had was completely under water,” she told CNN adding that 10 to 15 other families in the area also lost everything.

Asher, who lives with her husband and three children, said her three-bedroom home and truck were washed away on Thursday. The family is now with their brother-in-law in a nearby region. “I don’t have any plans, I don’t know, how do you start from scratch?” she asked.

The governor said the state will need a long time to recover. “Hundreds will lose their homes, and this will be yet another event (that) will take not months, but probably years, for many families to recover,” Beshear said.

On Thursday, the governor activated the National Guard to help with rescues and recovery and declared an emergency to expedite resources, he said.

The Guard identified people trapped on the rooftops and was “making preparations to come in and get them out,” Assistant State General Major General Hal Lamberton told a news conference, without detailing where those people were.

Videos from several locations showed the flooding covering roads and engulfing parts of homes and vehicles.

In the small town of Hindman, a lake has built up in areas of valleys, nearly covering pickup trucks and breaking into several homes, in some cases reaching almost to the roofs, a drone video recorded by storm chaser Brandon Clement showed.

Barbara Wicker was worried about relatives in Hindman, including five grandchildren, because water had surrounded their homes, she told Clement in a pre-dawn interview.

“I can’t reach them. I cannot reach 911 (emergency service). … There’s no help in sight,” Wicker said in Hindman, a town in Knott County, about 200 km from Lexington, the state’s second-largest city.

The weather is expected to improve over the weekend. “We should see dry weather start to return to the area by Saturday,” said Jordan of the weather service.

Deaths in at least two counties

Of the people who died as a result of the floods, at least one died in Perry County and one in Knott County, Beshear said at the second press conference. Another was an 81-year-old woman from Perry County, the governor said, without saying where she died.

The Perry County coroner’s office said it knew of at least one death there as of Thursday morning – that of an 82-year-old woman whose body was found in Coneva after she was reported missing.

Authorities had to travel 1 km by boat and walk about 2 km on foot to reach it, said Jeffrey Combs, deputy chief coroner for Perry County. Many of the county’s roads are inaccessible, said Combs, who did not release the victim’s name.

Perry County Judge Scott Alexander told CNN that at least 75% of the county has significant damage to roads and bridges and that several homes have been damaged.

A 76-year-old man and a woman in their 60s and 70s died in Clay County after being swept from their homes near the city of Manchester, the coroner’s office said. It is unclear whether the victims were part of the eight deaths announced by Beshear.

There is no precise number of missing persons. “There are several people who are missing and I am almost certain that this is a situation where we are going to lose some of them,” said the governor.

Residents of numerous counties that have missing family members have been asked by the Kentucky State Police to provide their missing family members’ first and last names, telephone numbers, addresses and descriptions to state officials.

In Floyd County, about 80 people were rescued, according to Judge Robbie Williams. He added that most of them were in the western part of the county, where it rained between 150 and 180 millimeters in a four-hour period.

“I’ve never seen so much water before,” Williams said. “I mean, it just spilled out and we have, you know, some small towns that are completely underwater.” He said he has not heard of any deaths or that anyone is missing.

Power and water cuts

The National Guard was deploying helicopters and trucks to deliver supplies and transport people, and Beshear also declared an emergency to help free up other resources. Workers from the Department of Fish and Wildlife were “with boats, working to do rescues where it was safe for their people,” the governor said.

Beshear told the affiliate of CNN WLEX that there were air rescues of 20 to 30 people. Tennessee and West Virginia guard units were also sending helicopters to help, he said.

Rescue areas included a school in Breathitt County, where some staff were trapped in a building, Beshear said.

Nearly 24,000 homes and businesses were left without power in the state, mostly in the east, according to PowerOutage.us.

Water service was also disrupted in parts of eastern Kentucky on Thursday, in part because pipes burst in flood events and systems need to be shut down for repairs, Beshear said. Water trucks were being sent to the region, he said.

Three state parks will be available to house people who have lost their homes, Beshear said.