Severe Weather

Flash Flooding Swamps Louisville; Missing Woman Found Dead in Car

Torrential rain overnight Thursday triggered major flash flooding in Louisville, Kentucky, closing roads and prompting more than 100 water rescues. Elsewhere, heavy rainfall continued to cause problems in eastern parts of the state into the day Friday, leaving at least one person dead.

A Lee County woman was stranded in her vehicle in floodwaters at around 9:30 a.m. on a rural Lee County highway Friday morning, according to The Associated Press. The car was swept away at about 11:30 a.m. Friday.

By the time authorities reached the vehicle, the woman had drowned. Initially witnesses thought the woman was accompanied by a child in the car, but the driver was alone.

Flooding problems were most widespread in and around Louisville Friday morning. According to Metrosafe, the official Louisville Emergency Management Agency, 116 water rescues were performed throughout Jefferson County since 1 a.m. CST Friday.

"It looked like a hurricane struck, said Simone Wester, who told The Associated Press her apartment complex was surrounded by floodwaters. "I didn't know what to do."

(INTERACTIVE: Latest Ohio Valley Radar | Flood Alerts)

Several vehicles were submerged at the University of Louisville campus at Eastern and Third Streets. (Tim Elliot/WLKY) — Several vehicles were submerged on the University of Louisville campus on Friday, April 3, 2015 as flooding rain swamped the city.
(Tim Elliott/WLKY)

Social media photos and video showed vehicles flooded with water up to wheel wells or higher. Underpasses on the University of Louisville campus were swamped, some by an estimated 8 to 10 feet of water.

Among the many intersections flooded and closed were Third and Eastern, Floyd and Cardinal, Six Mile and Breckenridge, Six Mile and Hurstbourne and Fourth and Industry. The ramp at Taylorsville and Interstate 264 in the city's east side was also closed.

Water rescues were prompted in the Whispering Hills apartment complex off Shepherdsville Road near Fern Creek on the Louisville metro's south side. The first floor of the Guardian Court apartments was also evacuated. Water entered a home in the south suburb of Okolona, prompting an evacuation early Friday.

By mid-afternoon, police in Woodford County, about 60 miles east of Louisville, said roads had been washed out near Versailles.

Northeast of Louisville, a Grant County school bus got stranded in floodwaters and 16 students aboard needed to be rescued, according to AP.

The culprit was a west-to-east band of heavy rain near a stationary front along draped along the Ohio Valley.

Louisville's Standiford Field picked up 3.96 inches of rain in just 6 hours ending just before 8 a.m. CDT Friday, including 1.51 inches of rain in just one hour ending at 2:56 a.m. CDT.

Doppler radar estimated a swath of 4 to 7 inches of rain from far southern Indiana through the Louisville metro area since early Thursday morning.

Louisville has picked up over 13 inches of precipitation (rain/melted snow) since March 1, which is almost 9 inches wetter than average.

Since Jan. 1, 2000, flash flooding has been reported in Jefferson County, Kentucky 41 separate days, including the current flash flood event.

The most destructive recent flash flood event, there, on Aug. 4, 2009, inundated the Churchill Downs Museum and track, the basement of the Louisville Free Public Library and several buildings on the University of Louisville campus. Total damage, there, was estimated at $45 million.