Rescuers in Kentucky are leading the door-to-door search amid worsening weather as they prepare for a long and grueling effort to locate victims of flooding that devastated the eastern state, the governor said Sunday.
Some areas in the mountainous region remain inaccessible after flooding turned roads into rivers, washed away bridges and homes and killed at least 28 people, according to state officials. Poor cell phone service also complicates rescue efforts.
“This is one of the most devastating and deadly floods that we’ve seen in our history… And at the moment that we’re trying to dig, it’s raining,” Gov. Andy Beshear told the show. “Meet the Press” of NBC.
“We are going to work to go door to door, work to find, again, as many people as we can. We even go to work in the rain. But the weather is making it difficult,” Beshear said.
The death toll from flooding triggered by torrential rains that began on Wednesday is expected to rise further.
“We’re going to be finding bodies for weeks, many of them swept hundreds of meters, maybe more than a quarter of a mile from where they were lost,” Beshear said.
The governor toured flooded areas in three counties on Sunday. In rain-stricken areas of the state, more than 350 people are temporarily living in shelters, he said.
In the city of Jackson, seat of hard-hit Breathitt County, state, local and federal rescue teams along with aid workers gathered Sunday morning in a Walmart parking lot as they prepared to deploy.
Some were distributing bottles of water to those in need. A boat marked “FEMA Rescue 4” was sitting on a trailer, indicating the presence of federal emergency crews.
The receding floodwaters had left a thick layer of dust on the streets while an ominous layer of dark clouds heralded more rain ahead.
The floods hit a region of Kentucky suffering from abject poverty, fueled by the decline of the coal industry, which was the heart of its economy, taking everything away from people who could least afford it.
“It eliminated areas where people didn’t have as much to start with,” Beshear said.
Some areas in eastern Kentucky reported receiving more than 8 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.
The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center warned of the possibility of flooding across a swath of the United States, including central and eastern Kentucky, through Monday.
“The threat of flash flooding will continue through the afternoon and early evening due to showers and thunderstorms with very heavy rainfall rates,” it said in a forecast.
President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration for the Kentucky floods, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.
[Con información de AFP y AP]
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