Devastating flooding in Kentucky has left at least 25 dead, although the death toll is expected to rise, the governor of that southern US state said Saturday, as rescuers continue to search for survivors.
Torrential rains earlier this week brought unprecedented flash flooding to eastern Kentucky, a region hard hit by poverty.
Several roads and bridges in this mountainous and impoverished region after the decline of the coal industry were damaged or destroyed. And with mobile phone service disrupted, the search for survivors has become difficult.
“I am concerned that we will find more bodies in the coming weeks,” Governor Andy Beshear said at a press conference at noon, shortly after reporting on his Twitter account that the death toll rose to 25 and that “it is possible that the number grows”.
Beshear said they are “still in the search and rescue phase” and corrected an earlier report of the deaths of six children, stating that two of them were actually adults.
According to US media, the four children were torn by the waters from the arms of their relatives clinging to a tree after the current swept away their caravan.
Beshear said National Guard teams from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia had performed more than 650 air rescues since the start of the storm, while police and personnel from other state agencies had carried out about 750 water rescues.
The search, he noted, was “extremely stressful and difficult” for rescue teams.
Chloe Adams, a 17-year-old teenager, was alone in her Whitesburg home when she was woken up by the sound of water rushing into her grandfather’s house, where she lives.
“There was water as far as I could see,” he told CNN. “I had a panic attack.”
Realizing that she had to swim to safety, she put her dog, Sandy, in a plastic basin and managed to reach a nearby shed, just above water level.
They both waited there for five hours for a cousin to come rescue them in a canoe.
more rain ahead
Some areas of the state reported more than 200 millimeters of rain in a 24-hour period.
The water level in the North Fork, the section of the Kentucky River at the height of the town of Whitesburg, broke its record in just a few hours, reaching 7 meters.
The floods turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their roofs visible.
The weather offered a respite on Saturday, but more rain is expected on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Kentucky.
Beshear explained to CNN that the impending rains represent a challenge, because although they are not expected to have “historic” records, they will constitute a “difficult” scenario.
It added that some 15 shelters have been opened in schools, churches and public parks, and that some 18,000 homes remain without power, while hundreds lack drinking water supplies.
The Kentucky floods are the latest in a series of extreme weather events that scientists say are a sure sign of climate change.
In December 2021, about 60 people were killed in a tornado in the western part of the state.
“We learned a lot of lessons in western Kentucky from those devastating tornadoes about seven months ago, so we’re providing whatever support we can and we’re moving quickly from across the state to help,” he said.
President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration for the flooding, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local rescue and recovery operations.
