As rescue and recovery teams worked to reach isolated areas Monday, the number of people confirmed dead in last week’s flooding rose to 37, Gov. Andy Bescher said. The death toll is expected to rise.
“We’re still looking for people and unfortunately we’re still finding these bodies,” Bescher told CNN Monday night.
Rescue efforts have been complicated by washed away infrastructure, officials say. Although cell service is being restored, some areas are still without it, leaving many unable to contact loved ones or emergency services.
Suffocating heat won’t help. Wednesday will be the driest day of the week, but that will allow temperatures to climb into the 90s. The humidity will make it feel like almost 100 degrees, CNN meteorologists say.
“We still have back roads and county roads that are torn up and our bridges are destroyed. So it’s really hard to get to some of the most remote places,” Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman told CNN on Monday.
The challenges make it “almost impossible” to know the exact number of people still missing, Bescher said Monday.
Since it began last week, the flood has ravaged several counties and forced scores of people from their homes. Heavy flooding swept houses off their foundations, took away entire livelihoods such as farms and businesses, and left residents with catastrophic damage to their property, vehicles and belongings.
Rescue teams have been battling the weather for days as they work to reach stranded residents.
A stunning video shows an 83-year-old woman being airlifted to safety by a Blackhawk helicopter in Breathitt County. A rescue team learned she and four other family members were trapped in an attic Thursday, Wolfe County Search and Rescue spokesman Drew Stevens told CNN.
The woman was uninjured, Stevens said, but a male family member suffered a broken collarbone and was taken to a hospital. He has since been released.
The disaster also knocked out major power and water systems, which repair crews are struggling to restore due to dangerous flooding. At least 7,000 customers in eastern Kentucky were still without power early Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 25,000 service connections were without water Monday, and an additional 44,119 were under a boil water advisory, according to the governor’s office. Twenty-two water supply systems and 17 wastewater systems are operating at limited capacity, the service said.
A grieving country after several catastrophes
The flooding is just the latest disaster to hit Kentucky, which has lost more than 16,000 people to the Covid-19 pandemic and is still recovering from a tornado outbreak that tore through the state in December, killing more than 70 people.
Bescher spoke at an event in western Kentucky on Monday for those affected by the tornado and acknowledged that Kentuckians have been affected statewide by deadly natural disasters.
“The flooding in eastern Kentucky was severe, just like these tornadoes,” he said, adding that natural disasters “tear at the fabric of who we are.”
“I was at a breaking point that night because it happens to all of us — it’s okay to not be okay,” Bescher said. “We’ll get through it because we have to.” We do not have another choice.”
The flood death toll spanned at least five counties and included four siblings from Knott County who were swept away by the strong current. The children were identified to CNN by their aunt as siblings Chance, 2; Nevee, 4; Riley Jr., 6; and Madison, 8.
“Yesterday I went to where their home used to be,” Bescher said of the family that lost the four children. “I was standing there in front of what would have been their front door and I saw one of the baby swings in the back. I think the biggest would have been in second grade. They didn’t even get the same time on this Earth that my children already enjoy.”
The governor launched a fund to help flood victims and those affected, the Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Team Fund, which will first go toward paying for funeral expenses for those who died in the disaster. Bescher told CNN that families will not be required to go through an application process to receive the funeral funds.
CNN’s Michelle Watson, Dakin Andone, Carol Alvarado, Amy Simonson and Monica Garrett contributed to this report.
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