How a few inches of rain turned ‘catastrophic’ in Kentucky and West Virginia

It had already been a harsh February across Kentucky and West Virginia. So when several inches of rain hit the region’s steep Appalachian slopes this weekend – areas saturated from repeated bouts of recent rain and snow – it was enough to produce historic floods that killed at least 17 people. And the disaster could still escalate: In poor and isolated communities struggling to restore heat and electricity, more snow and cold are expected this week.

After erratic weather moved across the country Saturday, the areas hardest hit were concentrated around parts of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia that had already seen up to twice their normal precipitation so far this winter, according to data from the National Weather Service. That meant rivers and streams were already running high, and soils that couldn’t absorb any more water began rapidly sliding downhill.

The death toll from the floods rose Tuesday to 14 in Kentucky and three in West Virginia, the governors of the two states said. The same storm system also killed another person in Georgia when strong winds pushed a tree onto a house in northwest Atlanta.

Water levels at a gauge on the Tug Fork River at Williamson, West Virginia, peaked just 3 feet shy of the region’s flood of record, from April 1977. But the impacts were far worse and more widespread than one resident could remember ever seeing.

“We’ve had the worst winter that we’ve had in quite some time,” said the Rev. Brad Davis, a 53-year-old native of the coalfields region of southern West Virginia.

He managed to flee the parsonage house where he lives in the town of Welch before the Tug Fork sent waters filling up the basement. He returned to find a layer of mud strewn across the first floor.

By Tuesday, the town remained in disarray. Floodwaters still blocked underpasses on either end of its main drag.

“It’s catastrophic across the region,” Davis said.

The rainfall might not have been so deadly if it weren’t for the wet and snowy weather that preceded it. This month alone, a barrage of storm systems have moved through: In Jackson, Kentucky, near the West Virginia border, one rain gauge measured more than 2 inches of rain from Feb. 5 to Feb. 8, followed by 4 inches of snow Feb. 11.

Then, from late Friday into Saturday, the Weather Service reported totals of 3 to 4 inches of rainfall across southern West Virginia and southeastern Kentucky. The storm dumped more than 6 inches of rain across a swath of southwestern Kentucky, nearly twice as much as the state gets during all of a typical February.

Flooding is not new to the region, and past events had prompted precautions such as a flood wall through Williamson, on the Tug Fork.

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) said that helped protect the town’s hospital and downtown area – waters remained 15 feet below the top of the wall, according to the river gauge data. But Morrisey acknowledged a “broader assessment” would be needed to determine how any of the widespread flood damage might have been prevented.

“When you have 5 inches of rain come in, there’s literally no place for the water to go,” Morrisey said.

In a Saturday update, forecasters at the Weather Service’s office of water prediction warned that the “complex terrain of the Appalachian Plateau is especially vulnerable to flash flooding events.” That, plus already saturated ground and swollen streams meant that “even moderately heavy rain” became enough to produce rapidly rising floodwaters, they said.

It was in some ways a repeat of 2022 floods that devastated the same region of southern Appalachia, sending water racing down slopes at grades of as much as 70 percent, said Chris Barton, a professor of forest watershed management at the University of Kentucky. In both events, rain fell on saturated soil, exacerbating the floods. In 2022, the rain fell in a shorter burst, causing the worst damage to occur along smaller streams that rapidly surged, he said. This time, because the rain fell over about 24 hours, damage was worst as water pooled in the valleys of larger rivers like the Tug Fork, he added.

And this time, the fresh memories of the 2022 floods meant some people weren’t caught off guard again.

“We kind of all had a feeling this could get bad,” Barton said. “People seem to have been more prepared for this one.”

The next concern for the region will be moderate to heavy snowfall and frigid cold.

Widespread snowfall of 3 to 6 inches, and as much as 8 inches, is forecast Wednesday night and Thursday across the same swath of states recovering from the latest storm. Then, wind chills are expected to drop below zero as Arctic air plunges into the South at the end of the week.

That could endanger many who were only just starting to receive relief supplies and clean up flood damage on Tuesday.

In McDowell County, West Virginia, nearly 1 in 4 households was still without power Tuesday afternoon, according to data tracked by PowerOutage.us. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said floodwaters damaged many homes’ heating systems and urged residents to seek out emergency shelters before the next storm.

“It’s not fair that we got hit again,” Beshear said. “It’s not fair that some of the same areas got flooded again, and its certainly not fair that we’re getting hit by a snowstorm while this is still going on.”