Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear confirmed this Sunday (31) that the number of victims of the floods that hit the US state in recent days reached 26, including at least four children. He repeated the prediction that the death toll should rise.
“There is damage everywhere, with many families evacuated and more rain forecast throughout the day,” he wrote on Twitter. “I know of many more bodies, we know the casualty count is going to rise. We’re going to find bodies for weeks.”
The torrential rains and flooding now are the second extreme weather event to hit Kentucky within seven months. In December, the western portion of the state was swept by tornadoes that left at least 74,80 dead.
The sum of the disasters makes Kentucky one of the main warnings in the USA of the risk of the climate emergency. Scientists claim that the increasing occurrence of increasingly extreme weather events is a direct consequence of global warming.
As temperatures rise, there is more evaporation, taking more moisture into the atmosphere, which is released as rain. And, with more extreme precipitation events combined with poorly adapted and precarious urban infrastructure, the greater the chance of flooding and flooding.
“Climate change is real,” Democrat Beshear had said on Friday (29). He estimated that repairing the damage caused by the combination of these extreme events could take years.
On the same day, President Joe Biden declared a disaster, allowing federal loans to help with rescue and recovery operations in the region. A day earlier, the governor had already declared a state of emergency.
The National Weather Service issued warnings for new flooding Monday morning in southern and eastern Kentucky. This Sunday alone, more than 13,000 reports of power outages were reported.
The volume of water from recent rains has raised the level of local rivers and impacted parts of Tennessee and West Virginia – where Governor Jim Justice declared a state of emergency on Thursday (28), for six counties.
Other regions of the United States also felt the impact of the rains. In Las Vegas, streets and casinos were flooded.
