Eastern Kentucky is reeling from devastating flooding that has
left at least 16 people dead and countless missing
governor Andy Beshear saying this is a disaster could be one of
the worst instances of flooding the state has ever experienced for more.
Returning to correspondent Mike.
Larry, who is on the ground in Kentucky, thank you so much for joining us Mike.
What is the scope of the damage that you're seeing on the ground there?
Well, Hannah,
I think that our backdrop certainly exemplifies the damage that
we're seeing and if we want to just zoom in,
you can see that just over my left hand shoulder, Hannah,
these are pieces of what used to be somebody's home just 30 yards away as we zoom out,
we're gonna move sort of slowly over here as I move to my right,
this is the foundation of that home, Hannah,
you can see the white foundation marks over here and pretty much Wednesday night,
late Wednesday night
into
early thursday morning, it's becoming apparent that the grapevine creek,
which is usually bucolic bordering this
property right here Absolutely over extends
its boundaries and just causes this home to to start to topple
and toggle around. So what happens, you have a huge section of the home
that slams into the other side of the rock formation,
the other side of the creek over here and then
begin to travel another 100 yards down the creek.
So
I'm showing you all of this is to just give
you a better idea of how powerful these floodwaters were
Wednesday night into thursday and really how little notice people had,
they said that this all happened in just a matter of minutes.
I have to ask mike, have you spoken with any survivors? How are they doing right now?
I'm sure they're traumatized and maybe even still shocked.
I think that that's a good way to put it traumatized and shocked and sort
of just trying to understand what has happened to them because I'll tell you,
I know we spoke with the owner of this property and we're gonna continue to show you,
you know parts of what we see like this bird feeder for example, this
mangled gutter as we just give you a better look of what we see.
The owner of this property has lived here for decades. Her daughter
lives about two blocks away on property that the family also owns
just before midnight.
The daughter is still awake, she sees the volume of rain coming down.
Her mom used to live in that home.
She runs over about two blocks away.
Mom opens the door and she says, mom, you've got to get out of here.
Your home is starting to wobble. So the daughter
saves the mother's life. The family as you alluded to
is sir,
currently in shock that things could have gone
a whole other different route with the mother
not surviving this in the least bit.
Another story that stands out to me a day
ago when the floodwaters here still had not receded.
There was somebody who said that she noticed the floodwaters beginning to creep up
around 1 15 in the morning and by two a.m. Her home was gone.
We know about the death toll tragically stands at 16.
What do we know about how many people are missing
and what do rescue efforts look like right now?
Mike
rescue efforts are extensive from the air,
from the National Guard Tennessee National Guard Virginia National Guard helping
out in some of our live shots throughout throughout the afternoon,
we've heard
the cacophony of helicopter rotor blades overhead.
But one thing that really sticks out there is a regional healthcare company,
it's called Appalachian Regional Healthcare.
It runs the biggest hospital here in the town of Hazzard Kentucky. They're missing
a lot 27 of their employees, 27 employees who worked in the er
the clinic that serves hazard right here and more than a day and a half later,
this company does not know where most of their employees are.
Governor bashir has said that close
to close to 300 people have been rescued at this juncture,
but he predicts that far more will be rescued
because there are just parts of the commonwealth of Kentucky
that cannot be accessed the way that we can,
you know, see scenes like this right here.
Is this an area that is typically prone to floods.
What kind of advisories did residents get before the heavy rainfall?
You mentioned, they didn't have much notice at all.
Sure.
So what used to happen is if we can see this gray pot,
this urn right here that's toppled over onto its side.
Family members told us this is
that pot
is essentially where the floodwaters from the grapevine creek
used to encroach upon.
It only got that high rather than what we saw,
We would have been in waist deep water thursday early thursday morning.
That is a critical point that you hit on Hannah
trying to figure out how much notice people had
because cellphone service in the best of times,
it's not exactly wonderful. We have been getting alerts
throughout the morning about flash flood warnings in the region,
but it remains to be seen
just how much notice people had from forecasters from
those alerts that you get on cell phone when
your cell phone, when crazy weather happens.
That remains a point that we're still looking into
and we don't have clear answers on that at this hour.
Excellent reporting as always,
mike Lario and hazard Kentucky continue to stay safe along with your crew.
Thank you so much