After the rain, heat descends on flooded Kentucky towns

HINDMAN, Ky. — Withering heat was descending on a region of eastern Kentucky already reeling from massive flooding, forcing residents laboring to clean up after the deluge to cope with an oppressive new threat.

The grim task of cleaning up from the flooding continued, but rising heat and humidity prompted officials to open cooling centers Tuesday as forecasters warned of the risk of heat-related illnesses and some residents remained without power.

In Knott County, Kirsten Gomez said her flood-ravaged doublewide trailer was being gutted by her husband and cousin. They were stripping drywall, flooring and cabinets ruined by floodwaters from nearby Troublesome Creek that engulfed their home early last Thursday.

“It is so miserable. The humidity is so high, it takes your breath,” Gomez said Tuesday. “Your clothes stick to you. Your hair sticks to you. This mud is caked on you.

“But I’m just blessed that we don’t have rain anymore.”

The blast of heat and humidity comes as some residents try to salvage what they can, and as search-and-rescue crews continued looking for people unaccounted for days since the floods hit.

“Extreme heat, extreme humidity, that’s stressful in itself,” said Jerry Stacy, the emergency management director in hard-hit Perry County, Kentucky. “We’re just fighting through this and hoping that this weather don’t make it too stressful. It don’t get a lot worse than what it is.”

A heat advisory was issued for flood-ravaged regions of eastern Kentucky from midday Wednesday until Thursday evening, with heat index readings expected to approach triple digits, the National Weather Service said.

“We’ve got to make sure that those that are vulnerable either have a cool place with family … or that we get them to cooling stations,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Tuesday. “We didn’t make it through the worst flooding that we have ever seen in our lifetime to lose somebody now in the heat.”

The death toll stood at 37 on Tuesday after more bodies were found Monday in the devastated landscape, and while more than 1,300 people have been rescued, crews were still trying to reach some people who remain cut off by floods or mudslides.

“It is absolutely devastating out there,” Beshear said.

“It’s going to take years to rebuild. People left with absolutely nothing. Homes that we don’t know where they are, just entirely gone. And we continue to find bodies of our brothers and sisters that we have lost.”

On a positive note, Beshear said most of the people reported as missing to Kentucky State Police had been found and that cellphone service had been restored though much of the region.

In Perry County, Kentucky, search and rescue teams scouring debris-littered creek banks were expected to wind up their work by Wednesday, Stacy said.