Residents Exhausted From Dayslong Storm Are Desperate for a Break

Hopkinsville, Ky., was first inundated by rain, a deluge that came with lightning that streaked the sky. Then, there was another invasion, as the water spilled over the banks of a nearby river, swamping homes and vehicles as well as the city’s downtown.

On Sunday morning, the city of 31,000 hummed as pumps were fired up to draw out the water that had seeped into buildings. One of them belonged to Tony Kirves, who owns a photography studio. His building’s basement had flooded, and the water nearly reached entrances protected by sandbags.

“It had all receded,” Mr. Kirves said. “Then last night, it came up again.”

The past few days have been restless, he said, his concern rising and falling with the floodwaters. He was exhausted. It was a weariness that was shared across a vast swath of the country, from Texas to Ohio, that had been battered for days by a huge storm system.

A reprieve from the rain was finally coming for much of that area, as the storm started to shift to the east. Yet even as the deluge subsided, other uncertainties began to emerge, particularly the perils posed by engorged rivers gushing over their banks.

“Rivers have not yet crested, so we still have a day — if not more — of rising waters,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Sunday, renewing his warning yet again for residents to stay vigilant.

At least 18 deaths have been attributed to the storm system since Wednesday, including those of a 5-year-old boy in Arkansas, a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky and a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter in Missouri.

So far, the heaviest rains of the weekend have fallen in Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky, where rising water and flooding have prompted water rescues, road closures and evacuation orders. Some areas received more than 15 inches of rain over the past four days.

Parts of the region could still receive up to five more inches of rain before the long stretch of bad weather finally clears, according to the National Weather Service. “Moderate to major” flooding was forecast on many of the region’s rivers.

Frankfort, Ky., was one place still getting pummeled on Sunday. Officials said at least 15 people were rescued from water in the area on Sunday, and the National Guard has been deployed.

Frankfort, the state’s capital, was also alarmed by National Weather Service projections that raised the expected crest of the Kentucky River, which had been bumped to 49.5 feet on Monday from earlier forecasts of 47 feet. The city’s flood wall is built to withstand 51 feet.

“There is not much margin for error,” said Michael Mueller, the judge and executive for Franklin County, which includes Frankfort. If the crest surpasses 51 feet, he added, “that changes everything and it would turn into something horrific.”

Sherry Hopper, 67, had to flee the campground near the city, where she had lived for about three years. “The water started coming up fast,” she said. Now, she was unsure about what was to come. She said she did not have the means to afford the expenses of evacuating or having to move her trailer.

“This is a mess,” she said, “but there’s not much you can do.”

Some rivers in areas like northern Arkansas and southern Missouri crested on Sunday. Others may continue rising for two or even three more days, but there will be less chance of dangerous flooding than there was on Friday and Saturday, forecasters say.

For many, another unknown is the extent of the physical damage.

A knee-level line marked the walls of Lawrence Schuetta and Jennifer Thompson’s home in Hopkinsville. The floodwaters had receded, leaving them with soaked furniture and damaged walls and floors.

The jolt from quickly evacuating, grabbing clothes and medicine at the urging of firefighters, had been replaced by the sobering realization of the mess they had to clean up.

“Everything that you see in there, we have just built up little by little, piece by piece,” Mr. Schuetta said. “And within 30 minutes, it was all gone.”

“I thought we’d be took out by a tornado,” he added. “Flooding was the last thing on our mind.”

In Poplar Bluff, Mo., Mount Calvary Powerhouse Church had to reschedule and relocate its Sunday services after the nearby Black River surged past its banks, turning the church’s parking lot into a muddy brown lake. The church sits atop a small hill, but the congregation didn’t know whether it was high enough from the floods. The pastor, Bishop Ron Webb, needed someone to take him there by boat after he had preached.

The answer came hours later, when the county sheriff, Mark Dobbs, delivered Bishop Webb to the church’s front steps. The water had not reached the entrance. Bishop Webb was especially worried about the downstairs and went to check out the electrical system.

He returned about 15 minutes later. Relief had washed over his face.

“Hallelujah,” Bishop Webb said.

About an hour northeast of the church in Scott City, Mo., Brian Bowles, 51, helped his son and grandchildren resettle after a tree fell on their house. Mr. Bowles, who works for a company that does road and infrastructure construction, was also anticipating busy days ahead. Many roads and culverts had been washed out. “They told us to be prepared for extra work,” he said.

The brunt of the storms moved on Sunday to eastern Mississippi, nearly all of Alabama, northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Areas to the east, from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida, face the greatest risk of excessive rainfall from the storm on Monday.

The Weather Prediction Center expects between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain there, with more possible in some sections, especially northern Florida and the eastern Carolinas. As the storm system moves east, parts of the southern Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states may experience gusty winds, thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes.

Evacuation orders were in place in several areas of Kentucky, including parts of Montgomery County, where the water levels on the Kentucky River could be high enough to cause near-record flooding, officials said. Some low-lying homes in Woodford County had already been inundated with six to eight feet of water.

Parts of Shelbyville, Ky., a city of more than 17,000 people, were under mandatory evacuation orders because of flooding in the Big Blue and Little Blue Rivers, local officials said. All of Falmouth, Ky., home to 2,500 people on the Licking River, had also been ordered to clear out.

The storm dredged up agonizing memories of previous times when the Licking River invaded Falmouth, including a 1997 flood that killed five people. That flood led to the installation of river gauges to better track water levels.

“The thought that it could be like 1997 doesn’t leave your mind,” said Debbie Dennie, a former editor of The Falmouth Outlook, a weekly newspaper with an office on Main Street. The possibility of the return of anything like that “would be devastating,” she added.

In places like Cape Girardeau, Mo., on the Mississippi River, the worst had passed and residents were bracing themselves for cleaning up and rebuilding. A pizzeria’s roof collapsed, and an antique shop had its windows blown out.

At Mr. Kirves’ photography studio in Hopkinsville, he had displayed photographs of the past floods that had ravaged his city: 1937, 1957, 1997. A photograph from the past week will likely be added.

“This is ’25,” he said. “It’s two years early.”

Reporting was contributed by Carly Gist in Scott City, Mo., and Mike Fitzgerald in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Amy Graff, Simon J. Levien, Mitch Smith, Isabelle Taft, Ali Watkins and Yan Zhuang also contributed reporting.