Mayfield, Kentucky, Hit by Floods 18 Months After Devastating Tornado

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Parts of Kentucky cannot seem to catch a break from extreme weather events.

Some 18 months after a powerful tornado ripped up much of downtown Mayfield, in southwestern Kentucky, heavily damaging businesses, homes, churches and a few insurance agencies, the city was hit with flooding this week after what may have been the heaviest rainfall on record.

“We were lucky this time. We didn’t get any flooding, but we lost part of the roof in the tornado” in December 2021, said Allison Burgess, who works with the Don Nowlin State Farm Insurance Agency in Mayfield.

She said the flooding was widespread around the area, including some residential streets, but was mostly in areas away from the downtown stretch that was hammered by the 2021 tornado that killed 57 people. The Peel & Holland Agency, one of the largest in southwestern Kentucky, saw its Mayfield office destroyed by the twister. Roy Riley, president of the agency, could not be reached Thursday morning and it was not clear if the agency’s post-tornado office locale had been hit by the flooding, which peaked Wednesday, according to news reports.

The Associated Press reported that rescue crews pulled people from flooded homes and vehicles in the area Wednesday, and waves of thunderstorms prompted flash flood warnings and watches.

The National Weather Service estimated that as much as 11 inches of rain fell in the area where Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri meet at the convergence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Kentucky’s governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday.

It was unclear the number of flooded properties that may have been covered by flood insurance. Flooding in parts of Kentucky has become a frequent problem in recent years and months. In the eastern part of the state, nearly 9,000 homes in 13 counties were severely damaged by floodwaters in July 2022.

In Connecticut this week, a woman died after being swept down a swollen river Tuesday with her 5-year-old daughter. State Fire officials say the pair were swimming in the Shetucket River in Sprague when they were swept away by currents that have been running high because of the recent heavy rains in New England.

They were found unconscious downstream and taken to a local hospital, where the mother, a woman in her 30s, died. Fire officials say the daughter was stabilized at a local hospital and is expected to survive.

And in Pennsylvania, searchers are still trying to find two children visiting from South Carolina who were swept away in what one fire chief called “a wall of water” that hit their family and killed their mother Saturday. Four other people also died in those flash floods.

Atmospheric scientists say the global warming responsible for unrelenting heat in the Southwest also is making this kind of extreme rainfall a more frequent reality, because clouds hold more moisture as the temperature rises, resulting in more destructive storms.

Photo: Mayfield after the 2021 tornado. (Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)