Torrential rains, the cumulation of which is established in places at more than 20 centimeters in twenty-four hours, have transformed roads into rivers and ravaged from whole neighborhoods. The president, Joe Biden, decreed the state of “natural disaster” and unlocked federal reinforcements.
Le Monde with AFP
The assessment of the floods in Kentucky continues to increase. “It went to twenty-five dead, and this number will probably increase,” said the governor of this American state on Saturday July 30, when a previous assessment reported sixteen people.
Torrential rains fell on the east of the State in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, transforming certain roads into rivers and forcing residents to take refuge on the roof of their house while waiting for help. Others found themselves trapped by the rise of waters or swept away by the waves in their vehicles.
The rains continued on Friday, but the weather offered a welcome respite to rescuers on Saturday. “A cold front moves to the south and time should remain relatively dry today,” said local national weather services, warning that “dry weather should be completed on Sunday afternoon”.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, decreed the state of natural disaster and unlocked federal reinforcements to support the areas affected by “the storm, the floods, the landslides and the mudslides”.
“The currents are so strong”
“We have now died confirmed, and this number will still grow considerably,” the elected democrat warned on Friday at a press conference. Four brothers and sisters, who were 1 year and a half to 8 years old, were swept away by the waters, when they had taken refuge at the top of a tree with their parents. The bodies of two of them were found and two remain missing, according to the local newspaper Lexington Herald Leader. An 82 -year -old woman also drowned while trying to take shelter, according to the authorities.
The emergency services, including the National Guard, the police and reinforcements from neighboring states, are all mobilized to help victims. About fifty air resumes and hundreds of boat resumes have already taken place, according to the governor of the State, Andy Beshear. “But there is so much water, the currents are so strong that we cannot reach everyone,” he had deplored Friday.
twenty centimeters of rain in twenty-four hours
In the region around Jackson, some roads have become rivers, with cars abandoned here and there. At the bottom of the small valleys surrounded by forests, the lands were flooded Thursday of a light brown muddy water which did not let out in certain places that the roofs of the buildings and the trees. Some regions of Kentucky have received up to 20 centimeters of rain in twenty-four hours.
With the global warming caused by human activities, the atmosphere contains more water vapor, which increases the risks of episodes of strong precipitation, according to scientists. These rains, associated with other factors linked in particular to regional planning, promote floods.
In December, several dozen violent tornadoes had ravaged five states in the center of the United States, mainly Kentucky, and made at least seventy-nine dead.