Flooding Destroys Homes in South

A second day of heavy rain in the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee triggered floods and mudslides Monday that destroyed dozens of homes and forced people to flee by boat as water lapped at the rooftops.

Tennessee authorities blamed at least six deaths on the storm, which dumped as much as 6 inches of rain on the region Sunday. Showers are expected over the next couple of days.

Flash flooding early Monday in the riverfront town of Cumberland, Ky., sent a trailer plunging over a 50-foot embankment with a family inside. A tearful Jacqueline Bellofatto recounted how she survived the fall and then searched frantically for her 7-year-old daughter in the mud and rain.

“I just started yelling for her and she wasn’t there,” said Bellofatto, who began digging in the mud beneath the trailer. “I just dug her out with my hands. She was buried alive.”

Once the daughter was found safe, Bellofatto, her husband, Scott, their daughter and 4-year-old son struck out for a neighbor’s home to seek help. “We were finding out with each step that we took we would sink down to our chest in the mud,” Bellofatto said.

Throughout Kentucky, at least 250 homes were damaged or destroyed. Authorities ordered the evacuations of a string of communities in the Cumberland River basin, where rooftops could be seen protruding from the murky water.

“The water came up so fast that we didn’t have time to save anything,” said Kimberly Evans, who was forced from her home in Dayhoit. “All we can do now is wait until we can get back in and see what we can salvage.”

Officials called the flooding in eastern Kentucky the worst in the region in 25 years. National Guard troops were sent in with three boats, three trucks and a Humvee to assist with evacuations.

Most school systems in the region were closed. Water lapped at the steps of a vocational school outside Pineville, covered two school buses and inundated a $12-million golf course.

In Tennessee, where the brunt of the storm had passed, two people drowned crossing swollen creeks and a family of three died in a traffic accident on rain-slickened Interstate 24. A traffic death in Nashville also was blamed on the flooding.

Nearly three dozen roads were still under water in Sevier County and dozens more in Blount, Knox and surrounding counties.

In southwestern Virginia, at least 15 people were driven from their homes in the town of Saltville after more than 4 inches of rain caused flooding along the Clinch and Holston rivers. Flood waters from the Guest River also forced evacuations in Coeburn, Va.