LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — At least nine people have died in the most recent round of harsh weather to pummel the United States, including eight people in Kentucky who died as creeks swelled from heavy rain and roads got flooded.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Sunday that hundreds of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued. President Donald Trump approved the state's request for a disaster declaration, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts throughout the state.

Beshear said most of the deaths, including a mother and her 7-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water.

"So folks, stay off the roads right now and stay alive," he said.

Beshear said there have been 1,000 rescues across the state since the storms began on Saturday. The storms knocked out power to about 39,000 homes, but the governor warned that harsh winds in some areas could increase outages.

Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 15 centimeters of rain, said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service.

"The effects will continue for a while, a lot of swollen streams and a lot of flooding going on," Oravec said on Sunday.

In Alabama, the weather service in Birmingham said it had confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down overnight in Hale County. Storms there and elsewhere in the state destroyed or damaged a handful of mobile homes, downed trees and toppled power lines, but no injuries were immediately reported.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale, or EF Scale, is a standardized system used to assess the intensity of tornadoes based on the damage they cause.

Extensive damage to downtown roofs and buildings was reported in the northern city of Tuscumbia, with authorities asking people to avoid the area, according to WAFFTV and other local media.

A state of emergency was declared for parts of Obion County, Tennessee, after a levee failed on Saturday, flooding the small community of Rives, home to around 300 people in the western part of the state.

Agencies via Xinhua