Two dead, six missing after Kentucky flash flooding
FLAT GAP, Ky. – Doris Hardin watched the water rise from the window of her mobile home in rural Johnson County. Her lights flickered off then her neighbor banged on the door, shouting for her to flee.
She ran for her car but it was already gone.
“I grabbed my keys and my purse and went out to get my car and it was floating down the creek.”
The floodwaters rising around Hardin on Monday afternoon killed one man and one woman, left six more missing and sent rescue crews to comb the hilly Appalachian terrain Tuesday, as the threat of more floods bore down on rescue efforts. Authorities called off the search about 8 p.m. Tuesday, with plans to resume this morning.
The water swept up Hardin’s trailer, her two cats still inside, and smashed it into a growing heap of mangled debris: other wrecked cars, snapped trees, downed power lines and mobile homes.
“One started and then they all just followed, and started piling into each other,” she said.
Kevin Johnson last saw his son wading through the rushing water with his 74-year-old grandmother on his back.
Scott Johnson had already saved his father, his uncle and sister. The 34-year-old returned to their cluster of trailers for his grandmother and teenage nephew and started to carry them to higher ground. As the flood raged out of control, he wedged his nephew into a high tree before the water washed him and the grandmother away.
The grandmother, Willa Mae Pennington, was found dead Tuesday among debris from their shattered mobile homes, Johnson County Coroner J.R. Frisby confirmed. Scott Johnson remains among the missing. The nephew survived.
Herman Eddie May Sr., 65, also was killed, Frisby said. He was swept away by floodwaters after he got out of his vehicle.
Emergency personnel in the hardest-hit neighborhoods struggled with the debris and difficult communication as they went door-to-door Tuesday, searching for stranded residents, Kentucky State Police Trooper Steven Mounts said.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency to give local officials immediate access to state resources to assist in recovery efforts.
The search area stretched more than 8 rugged miles, from the town of Flat Gap south to Staffordsville – an area with 500 homes and 1,200 residents about 120 miles east of Lexington, police said at a Tuesday morning news conference. Authorities estimated more than 150 homes were destroyed.
Authorities also worried that the muddy, rushing creek, still swollen Tuesday, had not finished its destruction.
A strong thunderstorm was passing through the area Tuesday evening, dumping heavy rain and lashing the area with high winds.