WASHINGTON - Devastating flooding in Kentucky has killed 25 people and the toll is expected to rise, the southern US state’s governor said Sunday, as rescuers and residents continued a harrowing search for survivors.
Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in 13 counties in eastern Kentucky.
Many roads and bridges in that mountainous region -- an area high in poverty due to the declining coal industry -- have been damaged or destroyed. With cell phone service seriously disrupted, finding survivors has been difficult. “I’m worried we are going to be finding bodies for weeks to come. Keep praying,” Governor Andy Beshear said in a midday news briefing, shortly after tweeting that the death toll had risen to 25 from 16 a day earlier. The Democratic governor confirmed that “we are still in the search and rescue phase,” saying, “We will get through this together.”
Beshear said an earlier report that six children were among the dead was inaccurate; two of them had turned out to be adults.
The four children, US media reported, were lost in a heart-rending drama. Members of a family, clinging to a tree after a fast-rising stream had engulfed their mobile home, saw their children torn from their grip, one after another, by powerfully surging waters.
Beshear said national guard units from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia had made more than 650 air rescues since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while state police and other state personnel had registered some 750 water rescues. He said the search was “tremendously stressful and difficult,” with mudslides and flooded roads blocking travel.
Seventeen-year-old Chloe Adams was home alone in Whitesburg when she awoke to the sound of water rushing into her grandfather’s house, where she lives. “There was water as far as I could see,” she told CNN. “I had a panic attack.”
Realizing she needed to swim to safety, she put her dog, Sandy, in a plastic tub. They made it only to the roof of a nearby shed, barely above the roaring waters.
She and Sandy sat there, shivering, for five hours until a cousin arrived in a kayak to rescue them.
Some areas in eastern Kentucky had reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.
In Whitesburg, the water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet. The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.
Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in 13 counties in eastern Kentucky.
Many roads and bridges in that mountainous region -- an area high in poverty due to the declining coal industry -- have been damaged or destroyed. With cell phone service seriously disrupted, finding survivors has been difficult. “I’m worried we are going to be finding bodies for weeks to come. Keep praying,” Governor Andy Beshear said in a midday news briefing, shortly after tweeting that the death toll had risen to 25 from 16 a day earlier. The Democratic governor confirmed that “we are still in the search and rescue phase,” saying, “We will get through this together.”
Beshear said an earlier report that six children were among the dead was inaccurate; two of them had turned out to be adults.
The four children, US media reported, were lost in a heart-rending drama. Members of a family, clinging to a tree after a fast-rising stream had engulfed their mobile home, saw their children torn from their grip, one after another, by powerfully surging waters.
Beshear said national guard units from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia had made more than 650 air rescues since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while state police and other state personnel had registered some 750 water rescues. He said the search was “tremendously stressful and difficult,” with mudslides and flooded roads blocking travel.
Seventeen-year-old Chloe Adams was home alone in Whitesburg when she awoke to the sound of water rushing into her grandfather’s house, where she lives. “There was water as far as I could see,” she told CNN. “I had a panic attack.”
Realizing she needed to swim to safety, she put her dog, Sandy, in a plastic tub. They made it only to the roof of a nearby shed, barely above the roaring waters.
She and Sandy sat there, shivering, for five hours until a cousin arrived in a kayak to rescue them.
Some areas in eastern Kentucky had reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.
In Whitesburg, the water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet. The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.