Numerous people in southwest Virginia remained unaccounted for Wednesday evening after torrential rain inundated communities in rural Buchanan County, heavily damaging homes and sending residents fleeing to higher ground, authorities said.

After the rainfall late Tuesday into Wednesday morning, about 40 people were unaccounted for, the county’s chief deputy sheriff, Eric Breeding, said at a news briefing. At 6 p.m., sheriff’s dispatcher Anita Smith said, “We’ve been able to locate some people, but we’re still trying to locate some.”

Corinne Geller, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman, said many of those unaccounted for could be safe but unable to contact authorities or loved ones because of balky cellphone service and large-scale power outages.

“Just because people can’t be reached doesn’t mean they’re missing,” she said. “We’re hoping a lot of them just left their homes and moved to higher ground.”

Authorities said Wednesday night that no deaths had been confirmed. News footage showed widespread property damage, with small houses washed from their foundations and vehicles encased in mud. The area was also hit by devastating flooding last summer.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R, declared a state of emergency to assist with response and recovery efforts. “We are deeply saddened to learn that another flood has impacted a community still recovering from last year’s flood,” Youngkin said in a statement. “In the wake of this devastation, I want Virginians in Buchanan County to know that we are making every resource available to help those impacted by this storm.”

Breeding said the first search-and-rescue teams arrived in Buchanan County, about 30 miles east of the Kentucky border, at 3 a.m. Wednesday. After an aerial survey of the area at daybreak showed a massive amount of damage, more teams were summoned and door-to-door searches for survivors began.

“We have approximately 18 search-and-rescue organizations assisting,” Breeding said at the midday briefing. He added, “At this time, we have no confirmed fatalities.”

Lauren Opett, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, emphasized that the conditions in the area made it difficult to tally the unaccounted. “At this time we do not have a specific number of individuals that remain unaccounted due to difficulties accessing areas cutoff by flooding,” she said in an email. “There is no power, no landline service, and no cellphone service in the affected area which is also impacting the ability to reach residents.”

The flooding occurred as multiple thunderstorms with torrential rainfall passed over the same area repeatedly. The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood warning at 10:06 p.m. Tuesday that remained in effect until 1:19 a.m. Wednesday for Tazewell County, which borders Buchanan County. It cautioned that rainfall totals up to 5 inches were possible and that small creeks, streams and low-lying areas could flood.

In Pilgrim’s Knob, Va., a Buchanan County community about 80 miles west of Blacksburg, a gauge registered 4.55 inches of rain. Much of that fell in just two hours, between 8 and 10 p.m. Tuesday. The torrents were triggered by a strong cold front draped over the Mid-Atlantic that also triggered violent thunderstorms in the Washington-Baltimore region Tuesday evening.

The flood in Buchanan County was the second in less than 12 months. In early September, about 50 people required rescue and one person died as the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the region, the Associated Press reported. Studies have documented an increase in extreme precipitation events in the eastern United States, linked to human-caused climate change.

 

The Washington Post’s Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report.

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