JACKSON, Ky. (AP) — Search and rescue teams backed by the National Guard searched Friday for people missing in record floods that wiped out entire communities in some of the poorest places in America. Kentucky’s governor said 15 people have died, a toll he expected to grow as the rain keeps falling.
“We’ve still got a lot of searching to do,” said Jerry Stacy, the emergency management director in Kentucky’s hard-hit Perry County. “We still have missing people.”
What You Need To Know
- Heavy rain brought severe flash flooding to eastern Kentucky Thursday morning
- 15 deaths have been confirmed, and hundreds of residents reported homes being washed away
- Over half of Knott and Letcher counties remain without power on Friday
- Gov. Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency for the impacted counties
Powerful floodwaters swallowed towns that hug creeks and streams in Appalachian valleys and hollows, leaving vehicles in useless piles, crunching runaway equipment and piles of debris against bridges and swamping homes and businesses. Mudslides on steep slopes left many people marooned and without power and made rescues more difficult.
“It is devastating,” Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN before touring the disaster area. “Our number of Kentuckians we’ve lost is now at 15. I expect it to more than double. And it’s going to include some children.”
While floodwaters receded in places after peaking Thursday, the National Weather Service said flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall remained possible through Friday evening.
“Places where there were mobile homes and houses, there’s nothing there now … It’s unbelievable to see,” Stacy said. ”You get 8 inches of rain in three hours, it’s just not anything that we have ever seen — ever, here.”
“In a word, this event is devastating,” Beshear said Thursday. “And I do believe it will end up being one of the most significant, deadly floods that we have had in Kentucky in at least a very long time.”
In Breathitt County in Kentucky, Krystal Holbrook’s family raced against surging floodwaters in the early morning hours to move possessions to higher ground. Their ordeal began around 4 a.m. Thursday, as they scurried in the dark to move vehicles, campers, trailers and farm equipment. But as the water kept rising throughout the day, the concern was that “higher ground is getting a little bit difficult,” she said.
“It looks like a huge lake back here,” she said.
Members of the Winchester, Ky., Fire Department walk inflatable boats across flood waters over Ky. State Road 15 in Jackson, Ky., to pick up people stranded by the floodwaters Thursday, July 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Beshear warned that property damage in Kentucky would be widespread. The governor said officials were setting up a site for donations that would go to residents affected by the flooding.
Dangerous conditions and continued rainfall hampered rescue efforts Thursday, the governor said.
“We’ve got a lot of people that need help that we can’t get to at the moment,” Beshear said. “We will.”
With more rain expected in the area, the National Weather Service said additional flooding was possible into Friday in much of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Forecasters said the highest threat of flash flooding was expected to shift farther east into West Virginia.
“There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on top of roofs waiting to be rescued,” Beshear said earlier Thursday. “There are a number of people that are unaccounted for and I’m nearly certain this is a situation where we are going to lose some of them.”
Rescue crews worked throughout the night helping people stranded by the rising waters in eastern Kentucky’s Perry County, where Emergency Management Director Jerry Stacy called it a “catastrophic event.”
Bonnie Combs, right, hugs her 10-year-old granddaughter Adelynn Bowling watches as her property becomes covered by the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Jackson, Ky., Thursday, July 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
“We’re just in the rescue mode right now,” Stacy said, speaking with The Associated Press by phone as he struggled to reach his office in Hazard. “Extreme flash flooding and mudslides are just everywhere.”
The storms hit an Appalachian mountain region where communities and homes are perched on steep hillsides or set deep in the hollows between them, where creeks and streams can rise in a hurry. But this one is far worse than a typical flood, said Stacy, 54.
“I’ve lived here in Perry County all my life and this is by the far the worst event I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Roads in many areas weren’t passable after as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain had fallen in some areas by Thursday, and 1-3 more inches (7.5 centimeters) could fall, the National Weather Service said.
Beshear said he has deployed National Guard soldiers to the hardest-hit areas, and three parks in the region were opened as shelters for displaced people.
Breathitt County’s courthouse was opened overnight in Kentucky, and Emergency Management Director Chris Friley said the Old Montessori School would provide more permanent shelter once crews can staff it.
Rainfall totals eclipsed 8 inches in some spots. Beshear called Thursday’s weather “one of the worst flooding events in Kentucky’s history.”
Roads in many areas weren’t passable after as much as 6 inches of rain had fallen in some areas by Thursday, and 1-3 more inches could fall, the National Weather Service said. People in low areas in Perry, Leslie and Clay counties were urged to seek higher ground after multiple swift water rescues were reported.
Breathitt County Emergency Management opened the local courthouse as a flooding shelter late Wednesday night, local officials said.
