Swollen rivers are flooding towns in the US south after a prolonged deluge of rain
Days of unrelenting downpours swelled rivers to near record levels across Kentucky in the USA on Monday, submerging neighbourhoods and threatening a famed bourbon distillery in the state capital.
Inundated rivers posed the latest threat from persistent storms that have killed at least 23 people since last week as they doused the region with heavy rain and spawned destructive tornadoes.
At least 157 tornadoes struck within seven days beginning March 30, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.
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Though the storms have finally moved on, the flood danger remains high in several other states, including parts of Tennessee, Arkansas and Indiana.
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.
Floodwaters forced the closure of the historic Buffalo Trace Distillery, close to the banks of the swollen Kentucky River near downtown Frankfort.
Salon owner Jessica Tuggle watched Monday as murky brown water approached her Frankfort business.
She and her friends had moved her salon gear to a nearby taproom.
Vehicles are seen within the floodwaters from the Kentucky River near the flooded Buffalo Trace Distillery.
Officials diverted traffic, turned off utilities to businesses and instituted a curfew in Frankfort as the river crested just short of a record Monday.
More than 500 state roads across Kentucky were still closed Monday evening, Governor Andy Beshear said.
Twenty-three deaths have been reported since the storms began Wednesday, including 10 in Tennessee.
Among the four confirmed killed in Kentucky, a nine-year-old boy was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus.
A five-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said.
And a man was found dead in a submerged vehicle, the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management said.
A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.
Buildings in a flooded downtown area are seen in Frankfort, Kentucky.
The Kentucky River crested at Frankfort Lock at 14.71m on Monday, just shy of the record of 14.8m set there on December 10, 1978, said CJ Padgett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Louisville, Kentucky, office.
A flooded structure is seen on Monday, April 7, 2025, in Frankfort.
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