The images that continued to emerge Saturday out of West Virginia, a state that has been slammed by historic flooding, tell a gripping story.
Roads turned into raging rivers of mud. Cars and trucks whisked away. Sections of highway crumbling.
Residents' belongings strewn in a jumble along front yards. Rooftops peeking out under the torrents. Homes knocked off foundations.
One house – all ablaze – being swept down a swamped street.
On Saturday, search and rescue teams continued to comb the area. About two dozen people have died in the extreme flooding that first hit portions of the state on Thursday into Friday. Six to 10 inches of rain pounded some locations within 24 hours, weather officials say.
"The amount of rain that recently fell on parts of West Virginia and southern Virginia exceeded a once-in-a-century event for the specific area and resulted in catastrophic flooding in some communities," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.
The toll updated Saturday from the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management:
• 32,170 are without power.
• More than 60 secondary roads remain closed. U.S. 60 and U.S. 119 are closed in multiple locations.
• Roane County estimates up to 50 homes are severely damaged or destroyed.
• The West Virginia National Guard is deployed in areas covering eight counties.
• The Clay/Roane water plant is flooded; water has been requested to be brought in for residents.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for 44 counties, including all but the northern and eastern panhandles. On Saturday, he requested a federal Major Disaster Declaration from FEMA to "provide individual assistance for Kanawha, Greenbrier and Nicholas counties."
Some of the heaviest rainfall was in Greenbrier County, home to the Greenbrier luxury resort and golf course. The course, which is now underwater, had been scheduled to host a PGA tour event from July 7-10. On Saturday, the PGA tweeted that the tournament was canceled "due to severe flooding." Resort owner Jim Justice earlier told The Weather Channel that it would be “a real mistake” to hold the event after such devastation.
AccuWeather's Elliot Abrams equated the flooding to similar devastation in Johnstown, Pa., almost 40 years ago.
"The Johnstown Flood of 1977 occurred in storms that developed and then trained in a manner similar to the current event. In both cases, the events occurred at the northeast rim of an existing extreme heat wave," Abrams told AccuWeather.com.
Although spotty thunderstorms were possible, drier conditions were expected this weekend.
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