What we know about the victims in the Kentucky flooding
When the rain came, Diana Amburgey was in her double-wide trailer across from the gas station she managed in Hindman, Kentucky, packing for a Florida vacation. At 65, she had never learned to swim and was terrified of water, but her family had managed — “for the first time in forever,” her daughter said — to talk her into taking a family trip to the beach.
Jeanette Johnson, 65, was at home with her 12 cats in Clayhole, Kentucky, in the house she had grown up in, a rickety place with outdoor plumbing. She was disabled and her eyesight was failing, but her church was nearby and she had steadfastly refused her family’s entreaties to leave.
Betty Jean Estep, 67, was with her son in Isom, Kentucky, in the trailer that her boyfriend of 17 years gave her. As the floodwaters rose, she and her son fled uphill until she turned to him in the dark and said she could not breathe. Go get help from the neighbors, she instructed.
By the time help arrived, Estep had collapsed on the wet ground. Forty-five minutes of CPR could not save her life.
As rescue crews worked through a fresh onslaught of rain Sunday, straining to restore power and water and recover bodies, the death toll from the floods that have ravaged southeastern Kentucky stood at 28 and was expected to climb.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has repeatedly said that authorities were expecting to find bodies for weeks to come. “Many of them swept hundreds of yards, maybe a quarter-mile-plus from where they were lost,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
County by county and home by home, local coroners have begun to confirm deaths and stunned families have begun to mourn. The victims have ranged from octogenarians to toddlers.
“People look down on Appalachians, and some people are saying the hillbillies got what they deserved,” said Tonya Gibson, a nurse practitioner in Knott County, who said she knew at least three families grieving loved ones. “But it’s not like that. These were good people, God-fearing people that loved their neighbors and looked out for each other. People don’t realize how much has been lost.”
Here is what we know so far about some of the victims.
Nellie Mae Howard, 82
Perry County Sheriff Joe Engle interrupted his search for flood victims over the weekend to bury a loved one of his own in Chavies, Kentucky. Engle, who is a pastor, said that walking by faith, rather than by sight, would be the theme of his sermon because that was how his great-aunt, Nellie Mae Howard, had lived.
During the storm, Howard sheltered at the home of her daughter, Patricia Collins, according to Angel Campbell, Collins’ daughter. But around 1 a.m. Thursday, Campbell saw a Facebook post from a cousin saying that the flood had submerged the enclave of homes where her mother lived.
As the hours passed, she learned that her mother had been found and was alive. Her grandmother’s body was discovered Friday morning.
Campbell said her mother told her that water had rushed into the living room, setting furniture and appliances afloat and eventually washing Collins and Howard out of the home. Collins became wedged up against a neighbor’s home, with loose lumber piled on top of her. It took nearly two hours for neighbors to dig her out, Campbell said.
When a search party located Howard’s body, her grandson, Chris Collins, lifted her up, Campbell said. He checked for a pulse, knowing he would find none, and cleaned the mud from her face. Then, he waited with her for hours until a rescue boat arrived.
Among Howard’s journals, the family said, were lyrics to a song by the Gaither Vocal Band carefully written in her handwriting: “When my eyes are closed in death with my Jesus I’ll be at rest. Then you’ll know I’m satisfied.”
James Miller, 73
The day before the flood hit, Ashley Collins turned 22 years old and had a video call with her adoptive parents, James and Carol Miller. James Miller asked how his grandson was doing, baby-talking to Collins’ 4-month-old.
Carol Miller, 72, sang him “You Are My Sunshine,” a reference to new pajamas covered in suns she had bought him. The next day, as the skies opened, Collins learned that her mother had tried to carry her father out to their SUV in an attempt to escape the flooding but that water flooded the vehicle and carried it away. Bed-bound for the past year after a botched back surgery, he could not move on his own, his daughter said.
As of Sunday afternoon, the vehicle had not yet been found, nor had Carol Miller. But James Miller’s body had been found.
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