Appalachia Digs Out After Flash Floods

The skies were dark but dry Friday, and residents of the snug Appalachian communities where Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia meet ventured out to assess the damage from six hours of flash floods, mudslides and tumbling boulders.

They saw devastation.

Houses were washed off their foundations. Water lapped at roof shingles. Cars had been swept atop garages. Mobile homes had flipped. Some walls had crumbled and some small businesses were wiped out.

Authorities were reporting four deaths and several people missing. And stories of near-misses were zipping from town to town.

“We had people tie themselves to trees, to rooftops, to the tops of motor vehicles--anywhere they could get out of the water,” said Vicky Jones, a sheriff’s dispatcher in Buchanan County, Va.

Conditions made it difficult to get an accurate tally of the casualties--or even an estimate of how many people might be missing or evacuated. Phone service and electricity were out over much of the region, and some communities were cut off from rescue crews.

“There are five people [from Buchanan County] still missing that we know of, and we expect more to turn up missing,” Jones said. “Our deputies haven’t gotten through everywhere. It’s just awful.”

The disaster hit with frightening speed.

Some parts of the region got as much of 4 inches of rain Thursday in six hours. Several tornadoes blasted through. Fierce winds whipped the mountain hollows. And there was hail as big as an inch in diameter.

“They’ve seen just about every imaginable severe weather event,” said Eric Edge, a meteorologist for Weather Central in Madison, Wis.

To make matters worse, the Ohio River Valley has been pounded with heavy rain on and off for weeks, so the ground already was saturated, the streams already brimming. Thursday’s rain had nowhere to settle.

By the time the Tug Fork River in far eastern Kentucky crested Friday, it was nearly 20 feet above flood stage, according to Randal Good, a deputy county judge in Pikeville, Ky. About 1,500 families in Pike County were evacuated.

Across the state line in Mingo County, W.Va., some highways were under 15 feet of water. In some homes, the water was 8 feet deep.

“This is not the worst flood ever, but it’s right up there with it,” said Bill Davis, the Mingo County emergency services director.

It was Friday afternoon, and Davis’ voice was thick with exhaustion. He had spent the last 24 hours directing rescues and sending crews to deliver--by boat--oxygen, insulin and other vital medications to residents stranded in their homes.

“Yesterday afternoon about 2 p.m., I got my first call [for help],” Davis said. “Then it was just one right after another.”

The tiny town of Hurley, Va., was among the hardest hit. By late Thursday afternoon, the murky waters of Knox Creek were crashing through the streets. The flood ripped down one of the post office’s cinder-block walls and punched a hole through the auto parts store. Within hours, the post office was under 8 feet of water.

“It looks like a Third World country. That’s exactly how it looks,” resident Rosemary Stacy said. “There’s so much devastation, people don’t know what to do.”

Amid all the gloom, elementary school Principal Jeff Nash found one reason for cheer: His small community of Welch, W.Va., pulled together in a big way to help 15 kids trapped Thursday night at Welch Elementary.

Their school bus couldn’t make it past the washed-out roads and the piles of rocks. And their parents couldn’t make it past those same obstacles to pick them up at school. So more than a dozen teachers, aides and custodians volunteered to stay with the stranded students.

A restaurant delivered hot dogs and French fries. And neighbors who could make their way through the rain brought in pillows and blankets.

“We made an attempt to convince the boys that we were on a camp-out and the girls that we were at a slumber party,” Nash said. “They slept real well.”