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Kentucky’s governor said it could take weeks to find all the victims of flash flooding that killed at least 16 people when heavy rains turned streams into torrents that swamped towns across Appalachia.
More rainstorms were forecast to roll through in coming days, keeping the region on edge as rescue crews struggled to get into hard-hit areas that include some of the poorest places in America.
The rain let up early Friday after some areas of eastern Kentucky received between 8 and 10 1/2 inches (20-27 centimeters) over 48 hours. But some waterways were not expected to crest until Saturday and Gov. Andy Beshear warned the death toll could rise sharply.
“From everything we’ve seen, we may be updating the count of how many we lost for the next several weeks,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. “In some of these areas, it’s hard to know exactly how many people were there.”
Patricia Colombo, 63, of Hazard, Kentucky, got stranded after her car stalled in floodwaters on a state highway. Colombo began to panic when water started rushing in. Her phone was dead, but she saw a helicopter overhead and waved it down. The helicopter crew radioed a team on the ground that pulled her safely from her car.
Colombo stayed the night at her fiance’s home in Jackson and they took turns sleeping, repeatedly checking the water with flashlights to see if it was rising. Colombo lost her car but said others had it worse in a region where poverty is endemic.
“Many of these people cannot recover out here. They have homes that are half underwater, they’ve lost everything,” she said.
It’s the latest in a string of catastrophic deluges that have hammered parts of the U.S. this summer, including St. Louis earlier this week and again on Friday. Scientists warn climate change is making weather disasters more common.
As rainfall pounded Appalachia this week, water poured down hillsides and into valleys and hollows where it swelled creeks and streams coursing through small towns.
