Comment on this story
comment
HAZARD, Ky. — People brought harrowing stories of survival Friday as they took shelter in a school that had become a shelter for those who lost everything when muddy water quickly seeped into their homes.
Some clung to trees as the waters flowed beneath them. Others held the children tightly. One man grabbed a branch so hard that he broke his ribs and collarbone.
“He blacked out and all he remembers is waking up with lights in his eyes,” said Kristie Gorman, assistant superintendent of the Perry County School District, which hosts the shelter at an elementary school. “And we have a lot of stories like this.”
President Biden issued a major disaster declaration for Kentucky on Friday as the death toll rose to at least 16, including several children, since Wednesday. Families in hard-hit cities began to receive unpleasant news about missing relatives. Others glimpsed ruined houses. And thousands were left without power by the disastrous flood.
Meanwhile, a flood watch remained in effect in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky, and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said he expected the death toll to more than double.
“As governor, I’ve seen a lot,” he said, recounting previous floods. “This is by far the worst.”
Among the dead, in Perry, Knott, Letcher and Clay counties, were six children, At least three people in their 60s, at least two people in their 70s and an 81-year-old woman, Beshear said. Most of the people killed were in Knott County, a county of about 15,000 inhabitants located about 150 miles southeast of Lexington.
The disaster status frees up federal funding to support the recovery, which was still ongoing Friday. With people stuck on rooftops and trees, first responders performed about 50 air rescues and hundreds of boat rescues Thursday, Beshear said. Limited cell service made it difficult to determine a count of the missing, and flooding in some areas was not expected to extend for another day.
But as survivors scrambled to safety and displaced residents began arriving in shelters, stories of what they endured began to emerge.
Brittany Trejo told the Lexington Herald-Leader that her cousins, ages 1½ to 8, were swept away from their parents by Thursday’s flood.
“They climbed onto the roof and everything below was washed away with them and the children. They managed to reach a tree and … they held the children for a few hours before a big tide came and washed them all away at once,” said Trejo. “Mum and dad were stuck in the tree for 8 hours before anyone got there to help.”
How two 1 in 1,000 year rain events hit the US in two days
Dwayne Applegate, 48, said he lost almost everything when the waters of the North Fork of the Kentucky River overflowed, causing damage throughout the small community of Barwick which he likened to someone “dropping a bomb “.
He fled in search of higher ground, eventually reaching some nearby woods and walking about four kilometers along muddy trails. He was later driven by a passerby in a Jeep to Hazard, where he was taken in by the West Perry Elementary shelter.
“If I were 70 years old,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it.”
Applegate said her mother’s hilltop property was safe from the waters, but essentially cut off on all sides, leaving her stranded. At some point, he hopes to reach her.
“People of Kentucky, we stand together because we are strong,” Applegate said.
The National Weather Service’s Jackson station predicted the rain would gradually slow Friday as a cold front moved into the area. However, more storms are expected to arrive from Sunday into Tuesday.
The deluge was caused by the same weather that caused historic flooding Tuesday in St. Louis, where at least one person died and several others were trapped in their cars and homes. Rainfall there and in Kentucky has less than a 1 in 1,000 chance of occurring in any given year.
Human-caused climate change has caused extreme precipitation events to increase significantly over the past century. Heavy rainfall is now about 20 to 40 percent more likely in eastern Kentucky and close to what it was around 1900, according to the US government’s National Climate Assessment.
This week’s flash flooding was the second weather-related crisis for Kentucky in the past year. In December, at least 70 people in that state were killed when tornadoes ripped through parts of the South and Midwest.
Hundreds of homes have been lost in what Beshear called “the worst flood disaster, at least in my lifetime, in Kentucky.” More than 300 people were in shelters. Churches are missing entire walls and houses have been torn apart, exposing the rooms inside. Standing water has made some roads impassable, while mudslides and fallen trees block others.
The mud-covered destruction of the latest emergency became more apparent in some eastern Kentucky communities Friday as floodwaters began to recede.
In Perry County, the damage to Buckhorn School, a K-12 facility with more than 300 students, was “staggering,” said Tim Wooton, the principal. The school was filled with at least six feet of water Wednesday night as nearby Squabble Creek swelled above its banks, he said.
Crushed wood, metal and other debris from the washed-out structures upstream shattered the school’s windows and doors and littered the hallways. While the school’s exterior walls remained intact, Wooton said the interior had sustained “extensive” damage.
“There is nothing recoverable,” Christie Stamper, the school’s assistant principal, said Friday.
The school graduated its 120th class in the spring, Wooton said, and students and residents of the small town of Buckhorn see it as a focal point of the community.
“We’re a family,” Stamper said through tears, “and that’s the heart.”
As waters rose around Price Neace’s home in Lost Creek, Ky., Wednesday night, his daughter-in-law urged him to flee. He had survived last year’s floods, but this time it was much worse, said his daughter-in-law, Sue Neace.
Around 2 a.m., Price, 72, left in his pickup truck in search of higher ground. Sue said she didn’t hear from him again until Friday morning.
He had parked his car on dry land and eventually left on foot, waiting for someone to rescue him, he told her. Sue, 48, said she planned to try to find him.
“This is family,” he said. “You just go.”
Through text messages, Sue determined her father-in-law’s location, about two hours from his home in Waddy, Ky. She texted him that she was going to pick him up after a quick stop at Walmart to buy some supplies.
In his text, she said, he asked her to bring him a pack of cigarettes.
Iati and Sachs reported from Washington. Jason Samenow contributed to this report.