The death toll in eastern Kentucky rose to 15 on Friday as floodwaters swept through homes, washed out roads and pushed waterways over their banks, Governor Andy Beshear said, warning that more fatalities were expected.

The National Guard and the state police used helicopters and boats to rescue dozens of people from homes and vehicles in Kentucky’s eastern coal-mining region.

Video footage from local media showed floodwaters reaching the roofs of houses and turning roads into rivers. “We have lost at least 15 Kentuckians, though that number is going to grow, probably more than double,” Beshear said in a video posted on Twitter, adding that 23,000 homes and businesses were without power.

“This situation is ongoing. We are still in the search-andrescue mode,” Beshear said. “It’s going to be a tough couple of days. It’s going to be a long rebuild. We are tough enough. We’re going to make it.” At least 300 people have been reported rescued by emergency crews, Beshear said at a morning news conference.

That number will likely climb, he said, considering that more than 100 people alone have been saved in National Guard airlifts. In Garrett, Kentucky, a coal-mining town about 201km east of Lexington, brown floodwaters swirled through a commercial street and backed up against storefronts, video clips showed. Rescue boats carried people wearing life jackets along the submerged street, past the tops of vehicles poking through the high water. “Everything is gone,” Garrett resident Rachel Patton told WCHS-TV as she cried. “We had to swim out and it was cold. It was over my head. It was scary.”