At least 14 dead in U.S. floods as rivers rise and rescues continue

Passersby looked on as water crept into businesses during a major flooding event in Pikeville, Kentucky on Sunday. (Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal/USA Today Network/Imagn Images via CNN Newsource)

Rescues were ongoing Monday as water levels continued to rise on some waterways in Kentucky and other portions of the Ohio Valley and mid-Atlantic flooded by a deadly coast-to-coast winter storm.

The storm killed at least 14 people – one in severe winds in Georgia, one in West Virginia and 12 in Kentucky, which took on some of the worst of the devastating flooding in the region.

Several others were missing amid “significant levels of flooding” in West Virginia, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a Monday morning news briefing.

More than a month’s worth of rain deluged much of Kentucky in less than 24 hours and set the deadly flooding into motion.

“We just got hit by one of the most significant natural disasters we’ve seen in our lifetime,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a Monday news conference.

Even though the rain had long since stopped the situation was still active Monday with waterways swollen, Beshear cautioned.

“There are individuals out there that still need help that are still getting in contact with us,” Beshear said after touring damage in hard-hit Pike County.

At least 237 people were evacuated by helicopter and boat from two apartment complexes in neighboring Martin County as water levels rose Monday, Beshear confirmed.

Emergency crews with the Kentucky National Guard and the Kentucky State Police performed more than 1,000 rescues since the flooding started Beshear said.

A “significant number” of the deaths in the state were from “people deciding to drive through standing or running water,” according to Beshear.

More than 340 roads were closed in the state due to flooding, potentially a record amount, Beshear said. At least 10 bridges in Pike County are “completely gone” due to flooding, according to county judge executive Ray Jones.

“Widespread flooding of roads continues across much of the region,” the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky, warned Monday. “Stream and river levels will continue to rise over the next few days in some areas, and this could cause new flooding to develop.”

Temperatures in the impacted region will plummet this week and a new winter storm will dump snow on still-flooded areas. More than 10,000 homes and businesses were without power in Kentucky Monday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

“If your power isn’t scheduled to come back on for another couple days, find a warm place,” Beshear urged. “We want to make sure we have everybody somewhere safe and warm.”

Kentucky’s latest flood disaster hit more than two years after catastrophic flooding left 43 people dead and devastated parts of the state. Water levels from the current flooding didn’t quite reach the same levels as the infamous July 2022 floods, but this weekend’s flooding had a much wider footprint, which is complicating rescue and recovery efforts.

“We were still working on (repairing) 2022 flood damage when this happened,” Jones lamented.

Beshear declared a state of emergency Friday ahead of the storm and on Sunday thanked President Donald Trump for approving a federal disaster declaration, making federal aid funding available to impacted areas, including search and rescue operations that will also persist throughout the commonwealth, Beshear noted.

Kentucky wasn’t the only state rocked by flooding.

Five flash flood emergencies – the most dire form of flash flood warning – were issued in parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee over the weekend.

One of these emergencies occurred when floodwater breached a levee in Tennessee’s Obion County Sunday. The county was under a state of emergency with mandatory evacuations in Rives, Tennessee, Obion County Mayor Steve Carr said.

The situation could unfold in more areas in the coming days as river levels continue to rise in impacted areas.

Flooding in parts of Virginia mixed with recently fallen snow and ice and worsened an already incredibly dangerous situation by adding in a hypothermia risk for anyone caught in frigid water. It’s a risk that’ll become more widespread as temperatures plummet this week.

In Indiana, drone images showed homes and roads submerged in floodwaters amid snowy weather Sunday. “It floods down here every year but it’s been awhile since it has been this bad,” said Hardinsburg resident Shelby Sandlin in a Facebook post.

The same storm that unleashed deadly flooding also brought dangerous severe thunderstorms to the South, heavy snow in parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast and powerful wind across the East.

One person died in the Grove Park area of Atlanta overnight Sunday when a large tree fell on a home amid “tremendous thunderstorm activity” in the area, Atlanta Fire Rescue Capt. Scott Powell said Sunday. Fire officials found the person trapped inside the house upon arrival around 5 a.m., he said. But the person ultimately died, Powell added.

The storm also knocked out power to more than 500,000 homes and businesses. More than 200,000 remained without power Monday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

Hard-hitting winter storm and brutal Arctic cold to come

Frigid Arctic air started to seep into the northern US on Monday and is just the beginning of a widespread, brutal blast of record-breaking cold to come this week.

Life-threatening cold will grip nearly the entire central US starting Tuesday as both air temperatures and wind chills plummet from the Canadian border to the Gulf Coast.

Gusty winds may drive wind chills as low as 60 degrees below zero in the Northern Plains on Tuesday morning and below freezing across parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.

In the Kansas City area, temperatures will remain below freezing all week, and cities such as Dallas and Houston will see double-digit temperature drops from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Wind chills in the teens and single digits will reach Kentucky by Tuesday morning and could drop below zero in parts of the state by Wednesday morning. The sudden onset of cold will coincide with yet another disruptive winter storm.

A winter storm forming over the Rockies on Monday will strengthen in the Plains on Tuesday and sweep over the South through Wednesday.

A widespread 4 to 10 inches of snow will bury parts of Kansas, Missouri and Illinois while much of Kentucky gets 3 to 6 inches of snow.

South of the snow zone, ice is forecast for cities such as Oklahoma City and Little Rock. The storm will then move into the Mid-Atlantic, including areas battered by recent storms.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency Monday ahead of the storm’s arrival in the state.

Amanda Musa, Mary Gilbert, Robert Shackelford and Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

CNN’s Nic F. Anderson, Chris Boyette, Dalia Faheid, Zoe Sottile, Zenebou Sylla, Karina Tsui, Emma Tucker, Hanna Park, Sara Smart and Graham Hurley contributed to this report.