Four young siblings were swept away by vicious floodwaters in Kentucky on Thursday as their parents struggled in vain to hold onto them, according to a family member.
As the rising tide filled their Knott County home, Riley Noble and Amber Smith escaped to the roof with their children, 18-month-old Chance; Nevaeh, 4; Riley Jr., 6; and Maddison, 8. But when the structure washed out from underneath them, the six of them “managed to get to a tree,” cousin Brittany Trejo said.
There, Noble and Smith “held the children a few hours before a big tide came and wash[ed] them all away at the same time,” Trejo told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “The mother and father was stranded in the tree for 8 hours before anyone got there to help.”
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Rescuers found Riley Jr. and Nevaeh’s bodies yesterday, according to Trejo. Maddison and Chance’s remains were discovered early Friday, she said. A GoFundMe campaign has so far raised a little under $5,000 for funeral expenses.
The Nobles are just one among countless families grappling with their new reality after Kentucky’s catastrophic flooding over the last few days. Deemed “one of the worst, most devastating flooding events” in Kentucky history, Gov. Andy Beshear on Friday confirmed that 16 people have died and dozens more are waiting to be rescued.
“It’s going to get a lot higher,” Beshear said at a Friday news briefing about the death toll, before confirming that the four children were among the six minors who have died in the flooding. “We may have even lost entire families.”
In the wee hours of Thursday, Amber Nickles watched her home disappear.
As Nickles and her fiancé looked on in horror from a small apartment over their garage, the two saw the main house on their Hindman, Kentucky property get lifted off of its foundation and sail down a swollen creek on ferocious floodwaters.
“My elderly mother, who had major surgery last week, was inside,” Nickles told The Daily Beast on Friday. “And so were my two older brothers, who are 56 and 58… One of them is physically and emotionally handicapped.”
The house eventually came to rest about 400 feet away, Nickles’ soon-to-be husband, videogame developer Marc Wyzomirski, said from the perch above the garage, where he and Nickles continue to shelter in place.
Remarkably, they survived.
“I don’t know how they lived, but by some miracle [the house] ended up kind of beaching itself on the road,” Wyzomirski told The Daily Beast. “It snagged on the neighbors’ house, which stopped it from floating further. And that’s where it is now… If I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it… It’s seriously like some Wizard of Oz shit.”
Nickles and Wyzomirski have been maintaining contact with the outside world thanks to the remaining power in a backup computer battery they’re using to charge their phones. The two have no way of getting out, since all road access is blocked—by their trashed home, where Nickles’ mother and siblings remain.
“A fireman went over there last night,” Nickles said. “The door was jammed and he busted it open for her, but she refused to leave because of her two pets.”
Wyzomirski said he and Nickles were able to rescue their own animals with literally seconds to spare.
“We got them in just in time,” he recounted. “It was like, one minute you look outside and you say, ‘Wow, it’s getting kinda big.’ And then the next minute, you’re like, ‘If we go outside, we’re gonna get swept away.”
All three of their vehicles were destroyed, and two unknown cars were washed into their yard. A truck belonging to Nickles’ brother simply floated away, and was found about a quarter-mile down the road, the top poking out of the rushing floodwaters.
A neighbor’s roof is now leaning against a fence on their property, said Nickles, describing the situation as “an absolute nightmare.”
“That we survived, it’s just a miracle,” said Wyzomirski, whose sister Sarah has set up a GoFundMe page to help them rebuild their lives. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
The National Guard and other state agencies had rescued at least 300 people across the state by Friday. One Whitesburg teenager who was at home when churning waters rushed in saved herself and her dog by swimming to a neighbor’s roof. Nearly 30 employees of the largest health-care system in eastern Kentucky remain unaccounted for, according to CNN.
And Beshear, who said he expects the death toll could more than double, warned Friday that rain is expected on Monday across Kentucky—spurring concern that flood levels may rise again.
“We’ve got to act quickly after the water recedes tomorrow,” he said.
As of Friday morning, flash flood watches are still in effect in many parts of Kentucky and West Virginia, where more than 21,000 residents are without power. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said flooding in the eastern part of the state has damaged some 21 drinking water systems.
Kathy Pruitt told The Daily Beast that her aunt and uncle are also among the countless families who have lost everything.
On Wednesday night, Pruitt said her family was awoken to the rising waters, forcing her aunt, Denise Boyd, to carry her husband, Terry—who is blind, a double amputee, and on dialysis—out to their truck. The mother, whom Pruitt described as “just a little thing” in her 60s, also had to carry out one of her sons, who is an “an amputee and just recently had a kidney transplant.”
“By the time she got everyone into the truck, she said that water was neck high on her,” Pruitt said, adding that the Boyd’s other son has special needs.
The family has since been forced to stay in their truck as they decide their next steps. To make matters worse, Pruitt added, is the reality that “everyone they know around them also lost everything they own.”
“They are trying to get someone to clear out the mud to see if they can salvage anything at all,” she said, adding that she has set up a GoFundMe campaign for her aunt and uncle.
Skeet Howard, 66, told The Daily Beast he had never seen flooding this bad in his life.
Howard, whose home sits on higher ground, finally regained power Friday. A close friend, who lives about 30 minutes away, has no power or water, and has been flushing her toilet with water from the pool, he said. He took her to the post office to get her mail, but the mailboxes had been flooded and everything inside ruined, he said.
“When I was out getting gas... I saw bridges down, so it’s hard for people to evacuate even if they wanted to,” he said, adding that there is “stuff from people’s houses piled up all along the highways.”
Back in Hindman, Wyzomirski and Nickles have salvaged anything and everything they could, and are now “cramming everything we have” into the apartment. There is severe water damage downstairs, and black mold is already starting to take root, they said. The roof there already leaked, and it is now no longer habitable for the long-term, according to Wyzomirski.
“We’re alive,” he told The Daily Beast. “Other than that, we’re not doing so good, I suppose.”
They will stay as long as they can, but the basement is “flooded with gunk, and the stench is building,” said Nickles.
“It’s so overwhelming, we almost have no idea what to do,” Wyzomirski added. “We’re trying to figure out how to get out of here, but we don’t know where to go or how to get there.”
