Clay Nickels and his spouse, McKenzie, have been woken up at 5 a.m. on Thursday morning to what they thought was somebody banging at their door.
After they went to test, it turned out to be rocks from a mudslide hitting the aspect of their home, Clay instructed CNN.
Instantly the couple started packing up their necessary paperwork and valuables and evacuated to McKenzie’s mom’s home close by. Clay mentioned McKenzie had a plan in place and packed every little thing up inside 5 minutes.
The Nickels stay in Neon, Kentucky, in Letcher County, part of the state that was closely affected by the floods.
After issues have been below management, Clay says he and his spouse went to test on household.
“At one level we seemed down the hill and you might see a soccer subject utterly underwater,” Clay mentioned, “The bleachers have been our information of telling if the water was receding or not.”
They then went to test on Clay’s grandfather who lives close by. The couple took life jackets with them, not figuring out how deep the water would get.
After wading in chest-deep water, the 2 arrived at Clay’s grandfather’s residence.
“He was high-quality, however his home was not, no person’s was.” Clay mentioned.
He tried to drive to his father and his different set of grandparents who stay in Kite, Kentucky, about 16 miles away. However as a way to attain them he spent hours utilizing a chainsaw to chop down timber that have been blocking roadways.
“The scariest half was listening to concerning the a number of fatalities,” Clay mentioned. “Folks have been saying that there have been deaths in my father and grandparents’ a part of city and I had no manner of figuring out if it was them.”
Everybody in Clay’s household is okay, however their homes are destroyed.
“My grandparents have 8-10 foot ceilings on their first ground and it was utterly filled with water,” He mentioned, “Furnishings is displaced and destroyed.” Clay and McKenzie’s residence solely suffered from some a small quantity of water leaking inside.
His great-grandfather, who’s 93, was in a position to evacuate his residence earlier than the flooding obtained worse. Clay says he stayed in his automobile up the hill by himself for a while, ready for an additional member of the family to get him.
“It seems like a battle zone right here,” he mentioned, “This affected all people. There’s only a few individuals I do know whose home, automobile or lives haven’t been altered by this,”
Clay mentioned they’ve been instructed it’ll take at the least every week earlier than energy and water is restored, however he believes it will likely be longer.
