A flooded neighborhood is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
FRANKFORT, KY – Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated the U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.
Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.
“I think everybody was shocked at how quick (the river) actually did come up,” said salon owner Jessica Tuggle, who was watching Monday as murky brown water approached her business in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital along the swollen Kentucky River.
She said that as each new wave of rain arrived over the weekend, anxious residents hoped for a reprieve so they could just figure out how bad things would get and how to prepare. She and friends packed up everything she could haul out of her salon, including styling chairs, hair products and electronics, and they took it all to a nearby tap house up the hill.
“Everybody was just ‘stop raining, stop raining’ so we could get an idea of what the worst situation would be,” she said.
Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to approach a record crest on Monday.
For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.
“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant downtown.
“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”
The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.
The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.
In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.
The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.
