The small city of Hopkinsville, Ky., was first inundated by rain, a deluge that came with lightning that streaked the sky. Then, there was another invasion, as the water spilled over the banks of the Little River, swamping homes and vehicles as well as the city’s downtown.
On Sunday morning, the city of 31,000 hummed as pumps were fired up to draw out the water that had seeped into buildings. One of them belonged to Tony Kirves, who owns a photography studio. His building’s basement had flooded, and the water nearly reached entrances protected by sandbags.
“It had all receded,” Mr. Kirves said. “Then last night it came up again.”
The past few days have been restless, he said, his anxiety rising and falling with the floodwaters. He was exhausted. It was a weariness that was shared across a vast swath of the country, from Texas to Ohio, that had been battered for days by a huge storm system.
A reprieve from the rain was finally coming, as the storm started to shift to the east. Yet even as the deluge subsided, other uncertainties began to emerge, particularly perils posed by engorged rivers gushing over their banks.
“Rivers have not yet crested, so we still have a day — if not more — of rising waters,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Sunday, renewing his warning yet again for residents to stay vigilant.
At least 18 deaths have been attributed to the storm system since Wednesday, including those of a 5-year-old boy in Arkansas, a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky and a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter in Missouri.
So far, the heaviest rains of the weekend have fallen in Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky, where rising water and flooding have prompted water rescues, road closures and evacuation orders. Some areas received more than 15 inches of rain over the past four days.
Parts of the region could still receive up to five more inches of rain before the long stretch of bad weather finally clears, according to the National Weather Service. “Moderate to major” flooding was forecast on many of the region’s rivers.
Some rivers in areas like northern Arkansas and southern Missouri could crest as soon as Sunday. Others may continue rising for two or even three more days, but there will be less chance of dangerous flooding than there was on Friday and Saturday, forecasters say.
For many, another unknown is the extent of the destruction.
In Poplar Bluff, Mo., Mount Calvary Powerhouse Church had to reschedule and relocate its Sunday services after the nearby Black River surged past its banks, turning the church’s parking lot into a muddy brown lake. The church sits atop a small hill, but pastors and congregants worried if it was high enough to spare the sanctuary from the flood.
“We don’t know yet,” said Bishop Ron Webb, the church’s founding pastor. “So we’re going to get a boat after the service and go over there to see, because it go way up there.”
Sherry Hopper, 67, had to flee the campground near Frankfort, Ky., where she had lived for about three years. “The water started coming up fast,” she said. Now, she was unsure about what was to come. She said she did not have the means to afford the expenses of evacuating or having to move her trailer.
“This is a mess,” she said, “but there’s not much you can do.”
In Scott City, Mo., Brian Bowles, 51, had been helping his son and grandchildren resettle after a tree fell on their house. Mr. Bowles, who works for a company that does road and infrastructure construction, was also anticipating busy days ahead. Many roads and culverts had been washed out. “They told us to be prepared for extra work,” he said.
The brunt of the storms moved on Sunday to eastern Mississippi, nearly all of Alabama, northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Areas to the east, from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida, face the greatest risk of excessive rainfall from the storm on Monday.
The Weather Prediction Center expects between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain there, with more possible in some sections, especially northern Florida and the eastern Carolinas. As the storm system moves east, parts of the southern Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states may experience gusty winds, thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes.
Evacuation orders were in place in several areas of Kentucky, including parts of Montgomery County, where the Kentucky River is forecast to crest at 47 feet — high enough to cause near-record flooding, officials said. Some low-lying homes in nearby Woodford County had already been inundated with six to eight feet of water.
Parts of Shelbyville, Ky., a city of more than 17,000 people, were under mandatory evacuation orders because of flooding in the Big Blue and Little Blue Rivers, local officials said. All of Falmouth, Ky., home to 2,500 people on the Licking River, had also been ordered to clear out.
The storm dredged up agonizing memories of previous times when the Licking River invaded Falmouth, including a 1997 flood that killed five people. That flood led to the installation of river gauges to better track water levels.
“The thought that it could be like 1997 doesn’t leave your mind,” said Debbie Dennie, a former editor of The Falmouth Outlook, a weekly newspaper with an office on Main Street. The possibility of the return of anything like that “would be devastating,” she added.
In places like Cape Girardeau, Mo., on the Mississippi River, the worst had passed and residents were bracing themselves for cleaning up and rebuilding. A pizzeria’s roof collapsed, and an antique shop had its windows blown out.
At Mr. Kirves’ photography studio in Hopkinsville, he had displayed photographs of the past floods that had ravaged his city: 1937, 1957, 1997. A photograph from the past week will likely be added.
“This is ’25,” he said. “It’s two years early.”
Reporting was contributed by Carly Gist, Amy Graff, Simon J. Levien, Mike Fitzgerald, Mitch Smith, Isabelle Taft, Ali Watkins, Ginny Whitehouse, Kevin Williams and Yan Zhuang.
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team. More about Nazaneen Ghaffar
Rick Rojas is the Atlanta bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the South. More about Rick Rojas
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