Kentucky flood death toll rises to 35, governor says

The death toll in flood-stricken Kentucky has risen to 35, Governor Andy Beshear said Monday afternoon, as rescue workers continue to scour the region for hundreds of missing people unable to access areas left isolated after floodwaters washed away bridges and flooded communities.

“More difficult news,” the governor said on Twitter. “We confirm more deaths in the eastern Kentucky floods. Our loss is now 35. Pray for these families and for those who are missing.”

The death toll could still rise further, officials said, with “hundreds of people missing” at the very least, the governor told a press conference earlier in the day in Frankfort.

“We just don’t have a firm grasp on it. I wish we had — there are many reasons why it’s nearly impossible,” he said. “But I want to make sure we’re not giving false hope or misinformation.”

Last week’s floods increased on roads, destroyed bridges and swept away entire homes, displacing thousands of Kentucky residents, Beshear said earlier. Vital infrastructure of electricity, water and roads was also eliminated.

Some of them still need to be restored, although cell service is returning in some of the hardest-hit areas of the state, the governor said, which could help people connect with loved ones who haven’t yet been in touch.

“I have lived here in this city for 56 years and I have never seen water of this nature,” Tracy Neice, mayor of Hindman, Kentucky, told CNN , saying that the main street of his city looked like a stretch of river where you could practice. “It was devastating to all of our businesses, all of our offices.”

Reading a summary of the dead in each county during a press conference on Sunday, Beshear was visibly moved when he came to four children killed in Knott County. They were identified at CNN by her aunt as Chance brothers, 2; Nevah, 4; Riley Jr., 6; and Madison, 8.

“It says ‘minor,'” the governor said, looking at the list. “They’re kids. The oldest is in second grade,” Beshear said.

The children – described as sweet, funny and adorable – died after the family’s mobile home flooded last week, forcing them to seek shelter on the roof, their aunt, Brandi Smith, told the outlet. CNN on Friday.

“They were clinging to them,” Smith said of his sister and her partner. “The water got so strong that it just washed them away.”

Sixteen of the deaths occurred in Knott County, about 210 km southeast of Lexington, according to the governor’s office. Seven people died in Breathitt County, two in Clay County, two in Letcher County and three in Perry County.

The governor believes that rescuers “will find bodies for weeks,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “many of them swept hundreds of feet, maybe more than a quarter of a mile from where they were last.”

More rain in the forecast

Authorities “are still in search and rescue mode,” Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman told CNN Monday, “because there’s a lot of water.”

“All of our state roads are passable,” she said, but “we still have secondary roads and rural roads that are broken and our bridges are broken. So it’s really hard to get to some of the more remote places.”

In Perry County, up to 50 bridges are damaged and inaccessible, according to County Executive Judge Scott Alexander.

“What that means is that there’s someone living on the other side or several families living in our corner on the other side that we still can’t have road access to,” Alexander said.

Things could get tougher due to a small risk of excessive rains across the region on Monday, the National Weather Service said, and with the ground already saturated, more rain could bring even more flooding.

“If things weren’t hard enough for people in this region, it’s raining right now,” Beshear said Monday.

A flood watch will be in place overnight, lasting from 9pm on Monday to 9am on Tuesday. Forecasts indicate potential thunderstorms and rainfall rates of up to 50 mm.

Heavy rains can cause excessive runoff and “result in flooding of rivers, streams, streams and other low-lying, flood-prone locations,” the weather service said.

Temperatures are expected to rise later this week, reaching as high as 32C on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the weather service, but it will be much warmer because of the humidity. Heat rates – the temperature felt when heat combines with humidity – are expected to peak at around 37 degrees Celsius in places, leaving rescue workers and displaced people facing oppressive heat as more than 14,000 customers remain without energy.

As the climate crisis fuels more frequent extreme weather events, several areas of the US are currently facing flash flood risk, including swathes of the Southwest Desert, Knoxville, Tennessee and Tucson, Arizona.

Region desperately needs resources

Kentucky State Police are still actively looking for missing residents in several counties and are asking families to inform authorities if their loved one is missing.

Meanwhile, state officials are immediately focused on bringing food, water and shelter to people who have been forced to flee their homes.

Power outages and storm damage left 22 water systems operating at limited capacity, a Sunday press release from the governor’s office said. More than 60,000 water service connections are out of water or under a boil alert, he said.

Officials overseeing recovery efforts say bottled water, cleaning supplies and donations of relief funds are among the most needed resources as the region works towards both short-term and long-term recovery. FEMA is supplying trucks full of water to several municipalities.

“Many of these places never flooded. So if they never flooded, those people won’t have flood insurance,” Hazard, Kentucky Mayor Donald Mobelini told CNN on Saturday.

“If they lose their homes, it’s a total loss. There won’t be an insurance check coming to help with that. We need cash donations,” he said, referring to a state-created relief fund.

Beshear established the Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund to pay funeral expenses for flood victims and raise money for those affected by the damage. As of Sunday morning, the fund had received more than $1 million in donations, according to the governor.

The federal government has approved relief funds for several municipalities. FEMA is also accepting individual disaster assistance requests from affected renters and homeowners in Breathitt, Clay, Knott, Letcher and Perry counties, the governor said.

“On Monday, I requested that several other affected municipalities be qualified.”

Communities face irreparable harm

While the recovery effort was still in the search-and-rescue phase over the weekend, Beshear told a news conference on Saturday that he believes losses will be “in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“This is one of the most devastating and deadly floods we’ve seen in our history,” Beshear told NBC on Sunday. “He eliminated areas where people didn’t have as much to begin with.”

And it wasn’t just personal belongings washed away by the floodwaters. A building housing archival film and other materials in Whitesburg was impacted, with the water submerging an irreplaceable collection of historical films, videotapes and audio records documenting the Appalachians.

The beloved center for media, arts and education, Appalshop, held archival footage dating back to the 1940s, Appalachian filmmaker Mimi Pickering told CNN , containing the stories and voices of the people of the region. Staff and volunteers scrambled to preserve as much material as possible.

“We are working as hard and fast as we can to try to save all this material. The full impact, I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet. I don’t think I want to think about it,” Pickering said. She noted that the Smithsonian and other institutions offered assistance.

The extensive loss that Kentucky residents are suffering will likely also come at a mental cost, Frances Everage, a 44-year-old therapist and resident of the city of Hazard, told CNN . While her home was spared, she said some of her friends had damaged homes or lost their entire farms.

“When you put your blood, sweat and tears into something and then you see it being ripped apart in front of your eyes, there will be a grieving process,” said Everage. “This community will be rebuilt and we will be fine, but the impact on mental health will be significant.”

Sara Smart, Andy Rose, Lauren Lee, Raja Razek, Mike Valerio, Mark Biello, Cole Higgins, Robert Shackelford, Chris Boyette, Aya Elamroussi, Dakine Andone, Caitlin Kaiser and Tom Sater of CNN contributed to this story.