Eight die in flooding across Kentucky as rescues continue, governor warns of ‘wild weather week’

By Liam Niemeyer I Kentucky Lantern

Flooding statewide is respon­si­ble for at least eight deaths in Kentucky as emer­gency crews con­tin­ue to con­duct search and res­cue mis­sions after already mak­ing more than 1,000 res­cues, Gov. Andy Beshear said Sunday.

Beshear urged Kentuckians to stay off the roads. While flash flood­ing is reced­ing, ris­ing rivers could bring more flood­ing in the com­ing days, he said.

In a Sunday after­noon news con­fer­ence, Beshear said at least eight deaths are attrib­uted to the weath­er, most from flood­ing and peo­ple attempt­ing to dri­ve through high water on roads. He said he expect­ed the num­ber of deaths to rise.

Among the deaths were a moth­er and her child in Hart County. WBKO in Bowling Green report­ed the Hart County coro­ner said a woman and a 7‑year-old child were swept away by flood­wa­ters in their vehi­cle near Bacon Creek in Bonnieville. 

“We hope it doesn’t grow quick­ly or grow much larg­er,” Beshear said. “But one way that you can help us out to ensure we have as few fatal­i­ties as pos­si­ble is don’t get on the road­ways now. Give time for the water to go down. We’ll prob­a­bly find out about more fam­i­lies that are hurt­ing. We don’t want yours to be one of them.” 

Beshear said President Donald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion approved his request for an emer­gency dis­as­ter dec­la­ra­tion. He said it is like­ly Kentucky will qual­i­fy for assis­tance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help indi­vid­u­als and repair pub­lic infra­struc­ture. Beshear said Saturday on social media that he had spo­ken direct­ly to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the act­ing direc­tor of FEMA. 

The gov­er­nor said impacts from the flood­ing reached across the state with por­tions of more than 300 roads see­ing dam­age, drink­ing water access dis­rupt­ed with approx­i­mate­ly 9,800 ser­vice dis­con­nec­tions and near­ly two dozen waste­water treat­ment plants either not oper­a­tional or func­tion­ing with lim­it­ed capac­i­ty. He said one of those treat­ment plants is under­wa­ter, and water lines may burst from flood­ing dam­age sim­i­lar to past flooding.

Tens of thou­sands are with­out elec­tric­i­ty, most­ly in Eastern Kentucky. 

Beshear urged Kentuckians need­ing help with pow­er out­ages, util­i­ty dis­rup­tions or oth­er sit­u­a­tions not con­sti­tut­ing an imme­di­ate emer­gency to avoid call­ing 911 so that dis­patch­ers can han­dle life-threat­en­ing emergencies. 

He asked Kentuckians fac­ing non-life threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tions to call 502−607−6665 or reach out online through the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management’s web­site. 

Some places in Western Kentucky have seen more than 6 inch­es of rain over the past 48 hours, accord­ing to the Kentucky Mesonet. 

Beshear said more rain and snow are on the way this week and could cause even more dis­rup­tions to trav­el, with West Kentucky poten­tial­ly see­ing 6 to 8 inch­es of snow Tuesday and Wednesday. “We know this is going to be a wild weath­er week,” the gov­er­nor said.

Jim Gray, the sec­re­tary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, said as water drains in Eastern Kentucky it could poten­tial­ly freeze over roadways. 

“It’s very dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy that. So this, too, is why cau­tion and not dri­ving unless nec­es­sary is urged,” Gray said. He also said sat­u­rat­ed soils that freeze can cre­ate addi­tion­al rock slides. 

Beshear said Kentucky State Parks offi­cials were hous­ing 142 peo­ple dis­placed by the weath­er with the hope that more state parks can be opened to house Kentuckians. He said Jenny Wiley State Park in Floyd County is at capacity. 

The gov­er­nor said while some coun­ties in Eastern Kentucky have been spared of the mag­ni­tude of flood­ing faced dur­ing cat­a­stroph­ic floods in 2022, oth­er coun­ties are grap­pling with worse flood­ing com­pared to past nat­ur­al disasters. 

“Pike County has got­ten hit real­ly, real­ly, real­ly hard,” Beshear said. “We got a lot of resources there and help­ing, but they’re also doing a great job with their local emer­gency man­age­ment. Hundreds of res­cues have occurred in Pike County alone.”

The Transportation Cabinet posts infor­ma­tion about road clo­sures at https://goky.ky.gov/.

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