Cities across the South and Midwest braced for more destruction on Friday from a storm that has already leveled homes and businesses and killed at least seven people in three states this week.
From Arkansas to Michigan, communities were sifting through the debris left by heavy rainfall and high-speed winds that started Wednesday night. River towns and cities were eyeing rising waters and piling up sandbags ahead of more rain this weekend.
The National Weather Service on Friday morning warned of a “life-threatening, catastrophic and potential historic flash flood event” across the Lower Ohio Valley and the Mid-South to Lower Mississippi Valley. A flash flood warning was in effect for much of central and western Kentucky. Strong tornadoes and large hail storms were also possible in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
More than 30 tornadoes have already swept through Mississippi, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana and Tennessee, and millions are under flood warnings and watches.
In Tennessee, where at least five people were killed by the storms, including a teenage girl, several inches of rainfall throughout Thursday caused major floods and shut down roadways.
The repeated tornado warnings in Nashville caused some of the sirens to run out of battery on Thursday, the Fire Department said. The western and middle regions of the state were still under “significant tornado and large hail threat,” according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
“This storm is going to continue,” Gov. Bill Lee said at a news conference Thursday night. “The main message tonight is don’t let your guard down.”
The two other people who died in the storms included a fire chief from Missouri and a 27-year-old man from Indiana.
Randy Colyer and his family took shelter overnight, as winds swept across their farmland in East Cape Girardeau, Ill. “We went in the basement and heard noises — loud noises — and then we came out and just started looking around,” Mr. Colyer said. A shed was gone and the farmhouse was damaged, along with much of his equipment, including tractors and combines.
In New Madrid, Mo., a city along the Mississippi River and one of many river communities at risk of rising water levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brought the city sandbag-filling machines to help prepare for any flooding. In Arkansas, participants in a Corrections Department work-release program helped fill sandbags in Saline County.
Gov. Andy Beshear warned Kentuckians on Thursday evening to not drive through flooded streets, especially in the western and central part of the state. Earlier this year, at least 11 people died in Kentucky from flash flooding and hundreds were displaced.
Nearly 80,000 customers were without power in Michigan on Friday morning as temperatures dipped below freezing, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks power outage data. Tens of thousands of outages were also reported in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Arkansas.
States from Texas to the Northeast are expected to see heavy rain and high winds through the weekend. The heaviest rainfall should ease for the hardest hit areas on Sunday, but river flooding is likely to continue through next week, the Weather Service said.
Mitch Smith, Carly Gist and Jenny Gross contributed reporting.
