By AP
Paducah, KY – The U.S. Coast Guard is warning that some rural parts of Kentucky are about to be inundated by the worst flooding in 200 years. Coast Guard Lieutenant Jennifer Jessee, chief of waterways management with the marine safety unit in Paducah, says the rising waters would reach their highest levels by the weekend to become a 200-year flood.
Seventy-three counties have declared states of emergency due to the flooding, and teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived Thursday to begin the task of assessing the damage.
Jessee says the Coast Guard's ban on recreational boating on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers as well as Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley is one of the reasons there have been no reports of injuries on those waterways despite extremely hazardous conditions.