CNN
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Nighttime water rescue teams have been deployed in areas impacted by heavy rainfall as a powerful storm races across the eastern US early Sunday –– with the potential for life-threatening flooding and dangerous tornadoes.
Video footage captured in multiple states show toppled trees, vehicles submerged in floodwaters and inundated houses.
Waters are already reaching historic levels in Kentucky as the storm gained momentum Saturday, officials said, just two years after catastrophic flooding left 43 people dead and nearly leveled parts of the state.
“First responders have completed nearly 30 water rescues today and counting,” the Louisville Metro Police Department said in a Facebook post late Saturday. Crews in Hopkinsville in western Kentucky were seen assisting a driver in a partially submerged vehicle.
Parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee are under flash flood emergencies and warnings through Sunday morning. Flood watches in some areas will continue into Monday.
Several tornado warnings were issued across Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee late Saturday.
At least 150,000 customers in Alabama, nearly 60,000 in Mississippi and more than 32,000 in Louisiana were without power as of early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 35,000 were also left in the dark across Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
At least one fatality has been reported – a 73-year-old resident of Manchester, Kentucky, who died in the Horse Creek area after being swept away by heavy floodwaters Saturday night, officials said. The man was driving on Kentucky Highway 8 and was unable to cross, according to the Clay County Coroner’s Office.
At some point, he exited his vehicle, where he was carried away by the heavy currents, the coroner’s office told CNN.
Some severe thunderstorms will persist into Sunday morning and could bring damaging winds from Florida through the Mid-Atlantic.
While the storm, which also flooded parts of California, is set to largely come to an end Monday, parts of the Great Lakes could be buried by lake-effect snow in its wake. Damaging wind gusts and tornadoes are likely in these storms.
A rare level 4-of-4 for high risk of flooding rainfall was in place for more than 1.5 million people in parts of northwestern Tennessee and western Kentucky where “life-threatening and significant flooding is anticipated,” according to the Weather Prediction Center.
Such weather events are issued on fewer than 4% of days per year on average, but are responsible for more than 80% of all flood-related damage and 40% of all flood-related deaths, research from the WPC shows.
The threat level is raised because the atmospheric setup for the storm is “quite unusual for mid-February” and could support rainfall rates up to 2 inches per hour in the heaviest storms, according to the center. Half a foot of precipitation could fall in the high-risk area where heavier bouts of rain essentially get stuck for an extended period.
Almost no area could absorb that much rain without flooding, but recent storms have already soaked soils in this region and make the threat that much more dire.
More than 500 miles of the country, from eastern Arkansas to West Virginia were under a level 3 of 4 risk of flooding rainfall Saturday, the center said.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey declared a state of emergency in 10 counties and a state of preparedness in all 55 counties Saturday, while the National Guard has been deployed in Virginia to assist with recovery efforts.
By Saturday afternoon, Kentucky streets were already inundated with water with some areas receiving 2 to 4 inches of rain. And water levels are expected to continue rising through the evening.
In Jackson, Kentucky, “serious flooding” overflowed the 75-acre Panbowl Lake as teams rushed to evacuate the area and facilities including a nursing home and hospital, officials said Saturday night.
In Whitesburg, Kentucky, residents at the Letcher Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility were temporarily relocated to a local high school. “We will reach out to inform each family individually as we arrange transportation for their loved one,” the nursing home said in a post on Facebook.
Floodwaters surged through the roadways in several cities throughout Simpson County, Kentucky. Elsewhere in the state, dozens of flooded roads were closed in Adair County, according to emergency management officials.
As he relives the severe flooding that destroyed his home in late 2022, Knott County resident Danny Laferty said he is anxious he will “lose everything again.”
“It was awful, terrible. I mean we had mud six inches deep in here,” Laferty told CNN on Saturday. “That’s what makes me so nervous.”
CNN’s Kia Fatahi, Jennifer Feldman and Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.
