Mud, rain, debris, hamper search for Kentucky flood victims
FLAT GAP, Ky. -- As the Johnson family dug through the wreckage where their trailers once stood, they found a mud-soaked box of family photos, cherished family heirlooms and a tiny porcelain statue of Jesus, but not what they were looking for.
Scott Johnson, 34, was swept away two days ago, trying to save his grandmother as a flash flood ravaged this rural eastern Kentucky community. He remains among the missing. Johnson's sister, Veronica Marcum, said the family has been searching relentlessly for some sign of him.
Three people are confirmed dead and at least one other last seen in the floodwaters remain missing, authorities said Wednesday afternoon. Kentucky State Police Trooper Steven Mounts said earlier in the day the fate of four others remains uncertain. Families reported them missing, but they could be stranded in their homes, without power or phone service.
"Everybody pretty much lost everything here," resident Brad Salisbury told CBS News correspondent Don Dahler.
Rescue teams are slogging through knee-deep mud and wooded, mountainous terrain, slowly trudging door-to-door as desperate families wait for word.
Kevin Johnson last saw his son Scott wading through rushing floodwater with his 74-year-old grandmother on his back.
Scott Johnson had already guided his father, uncle and sister from the raging flood that inundated their cluster of trailers. He turned back one last time to save his grandmother, who he called Nana, and a 13-year-old family friend.
"We told him, 'You can't make it,'" his father recalled. "He said, 'I'm going to get her out of that trailer."
Standing in a small cemetery on a hill overlooking the creek that had swallowed his son two days earlier, Kevin Johnson was so overcome with grief he sometimes struggled to speak.
He had watched as his son pushed the boy to safety in the branches of a catalpa tree and held his Nana on his back. He saw Scott and Nana washed away.
"Scott wouldn't turn her loose, that's why he died," Marcum said.
The grandmother, Willa Mae Pennington, was found dead Tuesday among debris from the family's shattered mobile homes, Johnson County Coroner J.R. Frisby confirmed.
Frisby identified the second known casualty as Herman Eddie May Sr., 65. May was driving alone in a sport-utility vehicle when floodwaters from Patterson Creek started to sweep him away. He drowned after he got out and was swallowed by the rising water, Frisby said.
Rescue crews resumed the search for the others missing Wednesday, battling swarming mosquitoes, oppressive humidity and mud so thick it sucked off shoes. Utility crews lined the roads, trying to restore power to thousands still without it. A convoy of National Guard vehicles and heavy equipment rolled through the hardest-hit areas.
Randall Mulkey, chief of Allen Volunteer Fire Department in nearby Floyd County who came to help with the search, said he's seen homes splintered into rubble, others split in half and cars strewn in places he never could have imagined. Tromping through the mud is exhausting, he said, and it's devastating to see people's belongings - clothes, toys, photographs - scattered everywhere, some piled 10 feet tall.
"You talk to (people) and they say, 'Right here, is where my house used to be,'" he said.
Seven cadaver dogs are aiding in the search, which stretches 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 news conference. Authorities estimate more than 150 homes were destroyed.
The roads now are lined with empty foundations, where trailers or homes once stood. Cars are flipped upside down and trees uprooted. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency, giving local officials immediate access to state resources to assist in recovery efforts. Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen flew over the area Wednesday to survey the extent of the damage.
Families returned to the ruins of their homes to try to save what little they could. Church groups and others passed out sandwiches and water, neighbors banded together to clear heavy debris and police said they hoped there still might be some happy endings.
Johnson County Deputy Sheriff Terry Tussey spotted a Chihuahua, alone and trembling, pacing a pile of debris on the other side of a creek.
"She was dancing like she wanted to come across the creek but couldn't do it," he recalled. He trudged through the muck, probably the length of a football field, to find a safe crossing. Then he coaxed the little dog to him and cradled it back to his car. He drove around the afternoon with the tan dog in his lap, looking for its owner.
A shelter was opened at the Paintsville recreation center, though many displaced residents turned to families and friends. Many who lost everything said they felt lucky to be alive.
Hebert Hayden, 78, left home Monday with his wife for a doctor's appointment. While they were away, their mobile home was swept from its foundation and crashed nearby. They lost everything.
"All I can say is God was on our side," he said. "If we would have been here, we would have drowned."