“This is the kind of flooding that even a flood-prone area has never seen in our lifetime,” Beshear told CNN after returning from an aerial tour of the flooding in Breathitt County on Friday. “Hundreds of houses were wiped out with nothing left.”
In addition to the 16 people known to have been killed, the governor said the death toll “could possibly double” in the coming days as rescuers search for new areas that are currently impassable. Rescue efforts have also been hampered by power outages that continued early Saturday with more than 17,000 homes and businesses left in the dark, according to PowerOutage.us. There is no accurate count of how many people are still missing in the aftermath, as cellphone service is down in many areas, with Beshear saying, “It’s going to be very difficult to get a good number.” Huge floodwaters washed away homes in several counties, leaving some residents to climb onto their roofs to escape the deadly floodwaters. Officials believe thousands have been affected by the storms, and efforts to rebuild some areas could take years, the governor said Friday. “It’s devastating for us, especially since the western part of our state went through the worst tornado disaster we’ve ever seen just seven and a half months ago,” Beshear told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, referring to a string of tornadoes that tore through Kentucky in December and left behind 74 dead. Deaths have been reported in Knott, Perry, Letcher and Clay counties. Fourteen people, including four children, were confirmed dead Friday afternoon in Knott County, according to the county medical examiner. It was not immediately clear how that number affects the state’s total death toll. The latest official update on 16 deaths statewide included 11 deaths in Knott County. The four children were siblings, according to their aunt Brandi Smith, who said the family’s mobile home was flooded and forced the family to rush to the roof for safety. She added that her sister, Amber, and her partner tried to save their children but were unsuccessful. “They were holding them. The water got so strong, it just swept them away,” Smith told CNN. Eastern Kentucky is expected to be relieved of the heavy rain on Saturday. Rain possible Sunday through Monday, when there is a slight risk of excessive rain in the area, according to the Weather Prediction Center. Areas affected may include eastern Tennessee and along the Appalachians of North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

An entire church was lost

The southeastern Kentucky town of Hazard had seven of its nine bridges impassable, an “unknown” number, Mayor Donald “Happy” Mobelini said Friday morning. Among the buildings that disappeared is a two-story church, pastor Peter Youmans told CNN on Friday. “All you see is cement debris,” Youmans said of the Davidson church, and he also saw floodwaters wash away a house nearby. “It started raining so hard that it was clearly coming into the parking lot,” he told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “And then it came up to our house. That’s when I knew it was really bad because it had never been up to our house before. It was about a foot.” A small creek in front of the Youmans’ home is about 8 or 10 feet wide and normally less than 6 inches deep, but during the flood, trailers were moving in the creek, he said. Parishioners would normally help the church at a time like this, but “they are taking care of their own problems right now,” he noted. “And some of them are in as bad or worse shape than we are,” he said. “We’re thankful the house wasn’t destroyed with my grandchildren inside.”

“I’m still kind of hurt”

Meanwhile, Joseph Palumbo in Perry County is struggling to get home after another house washed into a driveway, blocking access. “We walk to the end of our driveway and there’s an entire double-wide trailer that fell onto our bridge,” Palumbo told CNN on Friday. The trailer had been across Highway 28 from his home for decades, he said. “I’m still kind of traumatized because I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Palumbo said. And because the trailer landed on a small bridge over a creek, he and his girlfriend, Danielle Langdon, have no way to walk around it. “We’re climbing a ladder, scrambling over a tin roof, mud everywhere,” Palumbo said. “On the first day, we slide on the tin roof to get to the other side.” The resident of the damaged house was not inside at the time of the flood and managed to ride out the storm unharmed. “I have friends I haven’t seen in years reaching out to me,” Palumbo said. “It’s really encouraging to see the way people help each other.” At least 75 percent of Perry County sustained significant damage to homes and bridges, County Judge Scott Alexander told CNN on Thursday. “It’s a historic storm that we’ve had, I don’t think we’ve ever seen this much rain in 24 hours and it’s devastated the community,” Alexander said. “People lost houses, lost cars, it’s just an unusual event.” CNN’s Amy Simonson, Derek Van Dam, Joe Johns, Caroll Alvarado, Amanda Musa, Claudia Dominguez, Elizabeth Wolfe, Theresa Waldrop and Lauren Lee contributed to this report.