As the rains began to drench Eastern Kentucky this weekend, Mimi Pickering looked anxiously out her window in the town of Whitesburg as the North Fork Kentucky River kept rising, and rising, and rising.
Would it once again swallow the bridge that leads to the historic Main Street? And would the media and arts education center where she is a board member be damaged, as it was a few years before?
“It just looked so much like the 2022 flood — it felt just like, ‘Here we go again, this is unbelievable,’” Ms. Pickering, a filmmaker, said. “It’s been traumatic for people when it rains so heavily — it just adds to that PTSD.”
By Monday morning, a clearer picture of the destruction caused by the storms had emerged: At least 11 people dead throughout the state, with the death toll expected to rise. Hundreds of people displaced from their homes, and more than 14,000 people without power. More than 1,000 rescues with members of the National Guard activated from three states. At least 300 road closures of state and federal roads. Seven wastewater systems out of service, including one that was underwater. More than 17,000 homes without access to potable water.
And more grim news was likely, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said during a news conference on Monday, warning that a snowstorm was expected in the next few days that could dump as much as six inches. He urged Kentuckians to stay home and allow emergency boats, vehicles and workers to reach people in need.
“This is one of the most serious weather events that we’ve dealt with in at least a decade,” he said.
A winter weather advisory was in effect in Kentucky for Tuesday evening through Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service, which warned of dangerous driving conditions and potential black ice as temperatures were expected to drop into the teens and lower 20s.
From tornadoes to mudslides and floods and more floods, Kentucky has endured an unlucky streak, stretching back too many uncomfortable years to count, of being pounded by one climate disaster after another. Over the last four years, the flooding in Eastern Kentucky has killed more than 50 people. The previous December, tornadoes on the western side of the state left 80 dead.
This time, Mr. Beshear said that the damage was different in that there was not one specific area that had been decimated — such as the floods that devastated Eastern Kentucky in 2022 — but that the havoc was more evenly spread, and not as catastrophic. He also said that the state was better prepared this time because of its experiences with other disasters — in positioning personnel and equipment, and coordinating quickly with the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We learn from every one, and we try to rebuild so that the next one and the next one we lose fewer people,” he said.
The hardest-hit area, according to Mr. Beshear and emergency officials, was Pike County, in the eastern corner of state, abutting West Virginia and Virginia. In those neighboring states, a total of nearly 85,000 customers were without power as of early Monday morning, according to Poweroutage.us.
Larry McManamay, a retired painter in Pikeville, said on Sunday that he had watched the water rise slowly in his basement, which held thousands of dollars worth of tools, furniture and personal items. He was also worried about the risk of fire, because of the electrical outlets, now submerged, so he eventually evacuated to a nearby motel.
“It’s no good and there’s nothing we can do,” he said.
Chandra Massner, a professor of communication at the University of Pikeville, said that while her house had not been flooded, she had lost power for long stretches of Saturday and Sunday, and that she was unable to leave her home because the waters had not receded. Some people she knows, however, were in a more precarious situation, especially with temperatures dropping, and roads remaining impassable.
“They’re stuck,” she said. “They can’t leave. They don’t have power. It’s a significant, scary situation for a lot of my friends and neighbors.”
And though her county, Pike, had been spared in 2022, she noted, no one was under the illusion that they would be immune.
“There’s always the next storm on the horizon,” she said. “We seem to get our fair share of flooding in this region, and it’s a heartbreaking kind of devastation.”
In Letcher County, about 40 miles southwest of Pikeville, Amanda Lewis, the owner of Crafty Momma Treasures in downtown Whitesburg, said that she had opened her shop in February 2023, in a building that had been flooded the previous year. But when she visited the store on Sunday, the water had risen to about waist level, and the basement area where she had kept her inventory had been destroyed.
“Everything was just starting to get normal, and now everything is chaotic again,” she said. “Just devastation everywhere.”
Ms. Lewis, 44, who also works as a respiratory therapist at Pikeville Medical Center, said that, while her house had not been damaged, many of her neighbors had not been so lucky. Many, in fact, had just begun to move back into homes after being flooded out in 2022.
“The rain, PTSD, so many people have it, just the sound of rain, and it was just awful,” she said. “I mean, your heart sinks for everybody who had to swim out and lost everything.”
In Clay County, about 75 miles west of Whitesburg, Todd Hicks, the pastor at Oneida Community Church, said he could tell by looking at remote cameras at the church that there was about five feet of water in the basement. There will likely be mold issues, he said, and the heat and water pumps will probably be affected, too.
He said the church had served as a refuge for many after the devastating floods in Eastern Kentucky in 2022. “We were the place that they come to,” he said. “Now I hope and pray we can get some help back when we’re in trouble.”
Rachel Nostrant and Claire Moses contributed reporting.
