Kentucky flooding, cold weather death toll rises to 22, FEMA to tour damage Tuesday

• Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced that the death toll from recent flooding and cold weather has risen to 22.
• The governor called the recent weather events one of the deadliest natural disasters in Kentucky during his time in office.

Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll from recent flooding and cold temperatures has increased to 22 during a Monday morning Team Kentucky update.

The governor said the latest is a man in Marshall County who died of hypothermia and follows the announcement of six additional deaths over the weekend.

“This has been a painful, difficult disaster,” Beshear said. “There aren’t many natural disasters where we lose 22 people. After the widespread flooding in 2022 and the tornadoes in 2021, this is one of the most deadly disasters certainly since I’ve been governor.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear: Kentucky death toll from recent severe weather now at 21

Beshear said the Team Kentucky Storm Relief Fund, established to help residents impacted by the flooding and will help cover funeral costs, currently sits at just more than $300,000. The commonwealth is also still waiting for the federal government to confirm an expedited major disaster declaration, which is needed for individual and public funding assistance.

“This federal assistance is essential to those that have been harmed by this flood and we know those numbers are in the hundreds,” Beshear said.

Beshear attended a National Governors Association meeting at the White House Friday to advocate for Kentucky and storm relief funding. A team with FEMA remains at the Kentucky Emergency Response Center in Frankfort and FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton will tour damaged areas Tuesday.

Roughly 60% of the resource 460 resource requests made to Emergency Operations have been completed, Beshear said, with most requests coming from east Kentucky counties, including Breathitt, Floyd, Knott, Martin, Perry and Pike, as the commonwealth moves into the stabilization phase of the storm relief.

Nearly 90 Kentucky highways remain closed due to flooding, mud and rock slides, and the National Guard continues to clear debris in counties like Pike and Martin.

“This is how Kentucky bands together and I couldn’t be prouder of the local and the state response, doing everything that we can and hoping that we’ll see the federal government come through and add to this team to help people, especially during this stabilization phase,” Beshear said.

Reach Marina Johnson at Marina.Johnson@courier-journal.com.