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A 39-year-old woman died in Tennessee while trying to save her son from high flood waters on Sunday morning, according to officials.

The death of Mary Evelyn Nicole Manning-Kellione was among at least five reported during flooding in recent days in a region encompassing Tennessee and Kentucky.

Manning-Kellione had reportedly seen her son get swept into a culvert – or drain – when she went in to rescue him. Her son was swept through the culvert to the other side of it, but Manning-Kellione became stuck and drowned, the sheriff’s office of Grainger county, Tennessee, said.

“The son was able to surface at the other end and came to safety when he realized his mother was in the water,” the agency said in a statement. “Rescue personnel located the individual lodged inside the culvert.”

A post on Facebook described how Manning-Kellione’s son realized only afterward that his mother had entered the water for him and had not emerged.

“Mary is the tragic and perfect example of the absolute superhuman lengths a mother will go to for her children,” said the post, calling Manning-Kellione “a real-life super mom”.

Manning-Kellione’s death happened after intense rain fell on Kentucky and Tennessee, and flash flood warnings for that area were issued. At least four people died in Kentucky.

Three of the Kentucky fatalities occurred in Madison county, where the coroner said two of the deaths – a man and a woman – occurred at a residence in Richmond.

The third Madison fatality was a man who was swept away in his vehicle. The fourth was reported to be in Jackson county, Kentucky.

Kentucky authorities were investigating an additional death at about 9pm Saturday in Hardin county involving a car that crashed into a flooded creek faced with heavy rainfall and inundation. Emergency responders pulled two minors and an adult driver out the vehicle, the Kentucky news outlet WDRB reported.

But one of the minors was pronounced dead at a hospital on Sunday. The driver was booked on allegations of driving while intoxicated.

The National Weather Service (NWS) prediction center upgraded the flood threat on Sunday for parts of Kentucky and Tennessee to a level three out of four, which the agency described as a “moderate risk”.

NWS meteorologists had warned that rainfall rates of 2in to 3inhourly were possible. And they said daily totals could reach up to 5in in some parts.

Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear , provided an update early on Sunday afternoon in a video posted to X, saying that nine counties had declared states of emergency. Some of those counties “got hit with record or almost record amounts of rain in very short periods of time”, he said.

The governor advised residents to stay off the roads.

“Bridges have been wiped out, entire roads have been wiped away and there is still standing and moving water,” he said. He warned businesses against price-gouging and signed an order “so pharmacies in areas that are hit can go ahead and fill people’s prescriptions that have been washed away or are no longer safe to take”.

Beshear asked the public to join him and his wife, Britainy, in praying for families affected by “this difficult time”.