LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Stormy weather blamed for 12 deaths in the Midwest and South subsided on Sunday, though residents in some states remained shut out of their homes due to high waters.

Flood warnings remained in effect for parts of Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri. Many Kentucky roads were still submerged on Sunday, but waters in many areas began to recede.

“It looks like everything’s kind of quieting down, and things are being handled on the local level right now,” said Buddy Rogers, a spokesman for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management in Frankfort.

The storms that hit parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee Friday and Saturday stranded people in cars, forced others from their homes and left thousands without power.

The death toll in Kentucky reached eight, including a father and his 1-year-old daughter in a truck that skidded in floodwaters. Two deaths were reported in Arkansas, and in Illinois, authorities say lightning was the apparent cause of a house fire that killed elderly two women.

The National Weather Service reported that areas of Kentucky received at least 5 inches of rain, with isolated regions getting close to 10 inches. Over 24 hours, parts of northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri received more than 10 inches of rain, the weather service reported.

LG&E, Kentucky’s largest electricity provider, said power was restored to its nearly 1,300 customers who were cut off by the storm. Phone service was restored to many in Kentucky’s Hardin County who had been affected.

The American Red Cross and six county emergency agencies used boats and school buses to transport about 200 people attending at the Terrapin Hill Harvest Festival at a farmstead in Mercer County to a nearby shelter after rising waters forced an evacuation, said Ruthann Phillips of the Red Cross.

“It was almost Katrina-like pretty much,” said Chester Craig, a lieutenant with the Mercer Central Volunteer Fire Department. “There were vehicles underwater and people were walking around in a daze.”

Arkansas rivers swelled up to 8 feet above flood levels, officials said.

Campers at River Bend Park in Hardy, Ark., were asked to evacuate Friday night, when the Spring River began rising. Rescue crews were first called early Saturday morning, when campers and residents were stranded because of the rising water.

“I didn’t think we were going to make it out of there,” said Charles Lenderman, who was staying in a camper his family uses on weekends and the summer. Lenderman said he awoke Saturday morning to find knee-high water in his kitchen. Lenderman and family members – wearing life jackets – swam from the camper to higher ground about 100 yards away.

“I was scared to death,” he said. “It was spooky down there. The river turned into a mile-wide river there.”

Elsewhere, a tornado touched down Saturday night in Kent County in western Michigan, peeling off the roof of a barn, overturning vehicles and damaging businesses, according to the weather service. No injuries were reported.

In central and eastern Missouri, hundreds were without homes or power a day after a storm churned up about 10 tornadoes and drenched some parts of the state with as much as a foot of rain. Nearly 400 structures were damaged or destroyed and at least 10 people were injured, said Susie Stonner, a state emergency management spokeswoman.

In Arkansas, four northern counties declared emergencies Saturday after severe flooding. Emily Taylor, a state emergency management spokeswoman, said a tornado touched down five miles outside Ash Flat, damaging 12 homes and destroying two others. Two people were taken to a hospital for minor injuries.

In northwest Tennessee, about 300 people returned home Saturday after they were evacuated Friday night from a trailer park in Obion County when water from a nearby creek began to overflow, said Jeremy Heidt, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

In Evansville, Ind., Vanderburgh County emergency management director Sherman Greer said his agency had given away about 550 sandbags in 90 minutes Saturday, many of them to residents of Evansville’s southeast side who were dealing with flooding for the second time in two weeks.