Relentless rain drenched a large stretch of the central United States on Friday, pushing creeks and streams out of their banks and cutting off roads and entire communities. The raging floodwaters killed a 9-year-old boy, who was swept away in Kentucky on Friday morning while walking to the school bus.
He became the eighth confirmed death from the storm since Wednesday. More than 30 tornadoes have ripped across the region, and more are possible into the weekend. For now, the storm has stalled over a region from Arkansas to Michigan, putting communities on high alert for more dangerous flooding.
Many places were still sifting through the debris left by the heavy rainfall and high-speed winds that started Wednesday night, even as rain continued to fall, thunder crashed constantly and rivers rose across the Midwest and South. Some aren’t expected to crest until the middle of next week, meaning the storm’s impact could be slow moving and unrelenting.
Kentucky was hit hard on Friday. State highways were closed in 200 places across the state because of high water, transportation officials said. In Campbell County, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, crews were at work for hours clearing away the debris unleashed by a mudslide inundating one patch of rural highway.
In Hopkinsville, Ky., a city of roughly 30,000 people northwest of Nashville, the first hours of daylight on Friday were spent rescuing about a dozen residents who were trapped in the rising water, officials said. Many officials warned residents that the worst of the storm damage could happen this weekend, or even next week as rivers rise.
“We have a lot of bad weather coming still,” Michael Mueller, the county judge and executive in Franklin County, Ky., said on Friday. “It’s very, very dangerous out there.”
Franklin County includes Frankfort, where the 9-year-old boy died on Friday morning. His death was another haunting reminder of the human toll that extreme weather, particularly flooding, has inflicted on this part of the country in recent years. At least 11 people were killed by flash flooding in the eastern part of Kentucky earlier this year.
Residents of river towns and cities were eyeing rising waters and piling up sandbags in anticipation of more rain, which is expected to be widespread on Friday from eastern Texas to Illinois, and continue in much of that area into the weekend. The National Weather Service warned of a flash flood event that could endanger lives and break records across the Lower Ohio Valley and the Mid-South to Lower Mississippi Valley.
A flash flood warning was also in effect for much of central and western Kentucky into Friday afternoon. In Boston, Ky., roughly 35 miles south of Louisville, Bruce Gooden could see the water creeping up as he cut hair at his barbershop near Lick Creek.
The heavy rain swelling the creek could not flow into the nearby Rolling Fork River, which was already above flood stage. Mr. Gooden, 63, had seen the water rise before, but hour after hour of heavy downpours and cracking lightning fed a sense of doom.
“The water has never made it into my shop before, but I fear it will happen this time,” he said as he kept clipping. He had sand piled in the bed of his truck, he said, and was ready to bag and stack it if the water rose high enough.
“I’ll play it by ear,” he said. “I’ll stay open as long as I can.”
On Friday, the bull’s-eye for the heaviest rain that could lead to dangerous flooding fell within a large portion of Arkansas and a sliver of southern Missouri, including the Ozarks. On Saturday, forecasters expect the threat to spread into the boot heel of Missouri and western Kentucky and Tennessee.
Flooding is expected on roads, and major rivers will probably spill over their banks because the saturated ground will not be able to absorb several more inches of rain.
“I think, unfortunately, the next 24 to 36 hours is when we’re going to start to see the heaviest rain totals of this event,” said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said on Friday morning.
Severe thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes are also possible in the same general area on Friday. That risk will bump up on Saturday in a zone that includes Memphis, Little Rock, Ark., and Jackson, Miss. Powerful and damaging wind gusts and large hailstones — perhaps bigger than limes — are more likely in this area than tornadoes.
In Tennessee, where at least five people, including a teenage girl, were killed by the storms this week, several inches of rain that fell throughout Thursday caused major floods and shut down roadways.
The other people who died in the storms included a fire chief from Missouri and a 27-year-old man from Indiana.
In New Madrid, Mo., a city along the Mississippi River at risk of rising water levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brought in sandbag-filling machines, to cheers from city workers. In Arkansas, participants in a Corrections Department work-release program helped fill sandbags in Saline County.
As people made preparations, anxiety among customers at a grocery store in Boston, Ky., seemed to be rising as gradually as the water.
“You have to be ahead of it and aware of it, make plans,” said Steve Fox, 68, whose house is on a hill nearby, high enough that he believes he is safe from flooding. But the hill could become an island, he said, if the water rises enough. “The water will probably get over the roads, and I’ll be cut off for a few days,” he said.
For those around long enough to remember, a flood in 1997 — one of the deadliest disasters in Kentucky history — is the yardstick against which events like this are measured, and residents fear the coming days could bring something comparable.
Denise Baker has worked at the Boston Food Mart, where Mr. Fox was shopping, for 31 years, 20 of them as manager. In all that time, floodwater has never breached her store, but she knew that was no guarantee that it would not happen this time.
She knows how much the community relies on the store, and she was determined to maintain that lifeline — even if the store were to become accessible only by boat.
“We’re going to try to keep the store open as long as possible,” she said.
Carly Gist, Jenny Gross, Mitch Smith and Sara Ruberg contributed reporting.