FRANKFORT, Ky. — After days of deluges overfilled rivers to near-record levels across Kentucky, residents were anxious Tuesday to return to their flooded homes and assess what would be salvageable, even as stubbornly high waters kept some of them waiting even longer.

Susan Williams returned to her rural Franklin County home near Frankfort with her four dogs and three cats. She left Sunday while the waters kept rising.

Now, her house and a neighbor’s house looked like they were on an island in brown waters.

She and some friends loaded her animals onto a flat-bottomed boat and paddled back and forth, dropping them off at the house built by her parents.

“It’s my world. It’s my little paradise,” Williams said about her home.

Water was slowly receding in flooded Frankfort, Kentucky, and officials hoped that by the end of Wednesday, most people would be able to get back into their homes, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Tuesday.

Beshear urged patience and caution, pleading with people to wait if they couldn’t get to their homes without driving through water.

Officials warned of flooding expected along the Ohio River in Henderson and Owensboro into next week, with swift water rescue teams at the ready, Beshear said.

Officials in Frankfort diverted traffic, turned off utilities to businesses and instituted a curfew as the Kentucky River crested Monday just short of a record set in 1978.

Water service has been restored but wastewater isn’t back up yet, Beshear said.

Beshear’s office said more than 800 customers still had no access to water and nearly 4,000 were under boil water advisories.

Inundated rivers are the latest threat from persistent storms that have killed at least 23 people as they doused the region with heavy rain and spawned destructive tornadoes.

At least 157 tornadoes struck within seven days beginning March 30, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.

Flood danger remains high in other states, including parts of Arkansas, Indiana and Tennessee.

Cities ordered evacuations, and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utility companies shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.

Cold temperatures chilled the flooded region Tuesday morning, and a freeze watch into Wednesday morning forecast temperatures in the low 20s in some places, including parts of Kentucky and Indiana.

The 23 deaths reported since the storms began last Wednesday include 10 in Tennessee.

Among the four killed in Kentucky, a 9-year-old boy was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus.

A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said, and a 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.