Heavy rains this month have taken their toll…..
This while the West forest fires burn….
Climate change a contribing factor?
The region also sustained significant property damage. Hundreds of homes have been lost in what Beshear called “the worst flooding disaster, at least of my lifetime, in Kentucky.”
“Hundreds of Kentucky families are going to lose everything,” he said Thursday on “NBC Nightly News.”
The National Weather Service’s Jackson station predicted that rainfall would gradually slow Friday as a cold front moved into the area. More storms, however, are expected to arrive Sunday through Tuesday.
The deluge was caused by the same weather that caused historic flooding on Tuesday in St. Louis, where at least one person was killedand several others were stranded in their cars and homes. The rainfalls there and in Kentucky have less than a 1 in 1,000 chance of happening in a given year.
Human-caused climate change has spurred extreme precipitation events to increase significantly in the past century. Heavy rainfall is now roughly 20 to 40 percent more likely in and near eastern Kentucky than it was around 1900, according to the U.S. government’s National Climate Assessment….
Boston Globe
Kentucky death toll rises to at least 25 in flash flooding