good morning. it s saturday, july 30th. i m sara sidner. and i m boris sanchez. do not adjust your screen, that is the sara sidner, joining us this weekend in the cnn newsroom. sara, a pleasure to be with you. thanks, boris. of course. the scene of devastating flooding, 16 people are dead including six kids and authorities warn the death toll is certain to rise. kentucky governor andy beshear says it s hard to assess the exact number of missing or deceased. rushing waters wiped out roads across eastern kentucky, forcing a whole lot of people to evacuate. the storms caught many people by surprise because it happened in the middle of the night. listener to this heartbreaking story out of knots county. four kids are dead because they and their parents were forced to climb to the roof of their home to escape rising floodwater. neighbors say the parents tried to hold onto the little ones but the children were swept away. it s hard to put into words the amount of de
this is still an emergency situation. we are in search and rescue mode. again, that count is going to continue to go up and we don t lose this many people in flooding. it is a real tough one. rescuers are working around the clock. the national guard from kentucky, tennessee, and west virginia are lifting hundreds from the floodwaters. more than 600 already. washed away roads and bridges adding to the already very complicated recovery efforts. cnn s evan is at a command center for the research and rescue efforts. how are they coordinating what, is going on? reporter: well, hi, fred, when they say command center, they mean a place people gather. this is a parking lot of a shopping center here in jackson, kentucky, that is in the middle of where the floodwaters happened and behind me agencies are coming from all over the country, all over the state to work to try to help find people who might be trapped or still need help in the floodwaters and they re also working with a
kentucky showing some of the damage left behind by historic floods that killed at least 25 people. you can see floodwaters slammed this school bus into a building, just devastated there, wrecked cars and downed trees are everywhere. tomorrow eastern kentucky is expecting several more rounds of rain that could make this flooding worse. electricity is out in many places. state officials say 21 drinking water systems have been damaged by rushing waters. there have been more than 600 water rescues. among the dead are four young kids from one family, the youngest just two years old. the governor of that state said it s vast destruction in that area he s worried they ll find victims for weeks to come. this is still an emergency situation, we are in search and rescue mode. again, that count is going to continue to go up. we don t lose this many people in flooding. this is a real tough one. cnn s evan joins me now. just incredible footage of the devastation where you re at right
it s going to get worse, and i think that we will be updating it maybe even for weeks to come. we don t lose this many people in a flood, yet, there are still so many people unaccounted for. meteorologist gene norman is in the severe weather center for cnn. gene this is just devastating what has happened in kentucky right now, and as bad as it is at the moment, the flood threat is not over yet, is that correct? that is correct, jim. brand new flood watch is issued as new storms are beginning to percolate in western kentucky and western tennessee, and they re going to be marching eastward throughout the overnight. it s probably going to start raining in a place like hazard where the flooding was really bad. sometimes after midnight tonight. also seeing a bunch of storms firing up along a cold front. that front is going to lift northward. that s going to help these storms develop. new flood watch just issue that does include southern and eastern kentucky until monday morn
jackpot winner, and now we wait to see who that person actually is. i m hoping that hit the jackpot. i m pamela brown in washington. you are in the cnn newsroom on this saturday. in eastern kentucky the death toll rises, and the catastrophic floodwaters begin to recede. the horrors are now becoming more clear. 25 people confirmed dead, including at least four children from the same family. their aunt tells us that they were between 2 and 8 years old. kentucky s governor tells cnn that the national guard has gone on more than 660 air rescues. the floodwaters washed away roads, ripped away bridges, making the ongoing search efforts even harder. it s unclear how many people are still missing at this hour. the governor fears the death toll will be climbing. i m worried that we re going to be finding bodies for weeks to come. keep praying. i hope there are no. we ought to expect there will be more loss. prayer for the families that have already lost individuals. they re go