Flooding inundates Kentucky communities as Frankfort expects a record river crest

Flooding in Frankfort almost reaches a basketball net Sunday as the Kentucky River is expected to keep rising. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

FRANKFORT — Debora Bobbitt can’t quite believe that floodwaters could reach into her mother’s former home where she spent much of her childhood in Frankfort. 

But with the Kentucky River expected to crest at a record level of 49.5 feet following several days of unrelenting rain, her family and friends worked Sunday afternoon to move couches, tables and more from the home along Murray Street.

Just a couple houses over, the swollen river had already partially submerged the homes of people Bobbitt, 64, says she knows from growing up together. The river’s expected crest Monday morning would beat the previous record by a foot if realized, according to a projection by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

“I just hate that all these people down here — we grew up with them,” Bobbitt said. “I just pray for our community.” 

The state capital of Frankfort is one of a number of communities across Kentucky grappling with a deluge of flash flooding from torrential rainfall over the past several days — more than a foot of rain in some parts of the state — that’s now caused rivers to rise leading to evacuations along the Kentucky River in Frankfort and in the Pendleton County cities of Falmouth and Butler along the Licking River. 

In Carroll County, the deputy judge-executive Sunday afternoon ordered the mandatory evacuation of some areas because of a release of water from gates on Dix Dam along the Kentucky River. Robb Adams, the mayor of the Carroll County seat of Carrollton, in a livestreamed video on Facebook said the water release was planned.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear closed all state offices Monday given that flooding was limiting the available water supply in Frankfort, and he urged Frankfort residents to conserve water. The city utility Frankfort Plant Board in a Sunday morning Facebook post wrote electrical equipment used to pump water from the river had to be turned off due to the flooding and that the city was relying on water storage tanks. 

The widespread flooding across Central and Western Kentucky has caused numerous roadway closures and has, so far, killed two people: a nine-year-old child was swept away by floodwaters in Frankfort and a Nelson County man was found submerged in his car. 

After being told to evacuate, Ben Bramble, a 21-year-old lifelong resident of Frankfort, was moving furniture Sunday afternoon out of his rental duplex in the rain along East 3rd Street with the help of his family. 

With the expected record river crest and floodwaters surrounding homes just a couple blocks away, he wasn’t sure what he will come back to when the river finally recedes. Bramble said flooding is a “recurring problem” for the state. But no matter how many floods you’ve experienced, there’s nothing to be done once you’ve been told to evacuate. 

“It’s going to be higher than we could ever have thought,” Bramble said. “I really just hope that we can come back to our house and have it still here.”