Hopkinsville, Ky., was first inundated by rain, a deluge that came with lightning that streaked the sky. Then, there was another invasion, as the water spilled over the banks of a nearby river, swamping homes and vehicles as well as the city’s downtown.

On Sunday morning, the city of 31,000 hummed as pumps were fired up to draw out the water that had seeped into buildings. One of them belonged to Tony Kirves, who owns a photography studio. His building’s basement had flooded, and the water nearly reached entrances protected by sandbags.

“It had all receded,” Mr. Kirves said. “Then last night, it came up again.”

The past few days have been restless, he said, his concern rising and falling with the floodwaters. He was exhausted. It was a weariness that was shared across a vast swath of the country, from Texas to Ohio, that had been battered for days by a huge storm system.

A reprieve from the rain was finally coming for much of that area, as the storm started to shift to the east. Yet even as the deluge subsided, other uncertainties began to emerge, particularly the perils posed by engorged rivers gushing over their banks.

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A relentless storm continued to dump rain across the Midwest and South, causing increased flooding from Texas to Ohio.CreditCredit…Austin Anthony for The New York Times

“Rivers have not yet crested, so we still have a day — if not more — of rising waters,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Sunday, renewing his warning yet again for residents to stay vigilant.

Search for a place to see the observed precipitation.

Source: National Weather Service Notes: Values are in inches of water or the equivalent amount of melted snow and ice. By Bea Malsky and Martín González Gómez

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