JACKSON, Ky. — Baby strollers floating in a front yard. Family photos, caked with mud, on a warped living room floor. Cars submerged and precious keepsakes lost.
This is the reality facing many in Eastern Kentucky, whose homes were ravaged by historic floods this week.
In the Breathitt County city of Jackson, state officials issued evacuation orders Tuesday evening for those living near the Panbowl Lake dam, but by Wednesday, the high water throughout the area had begun to recede, leaving a mess in its wake.
'You really didn't have time to think'
Beneath a blue pipe running along the ceiling, painted with the white letters “Breathitt Bobcats,” Shanna Foster sat on a cot while her five children read books and slept behind her.
Shanna, 33, and her husband of three years, George, just purchased their Panbowl area trailer home about two weeks ago. They hadn’t yet set up their homeowners’ insurance, delayed first by a snowstorm last month and then the flooding that drove them from their home to the temporary shelter.
Now, they have to start over again.
The Fosters were among the 30 to 50 people who have sought shelter in the Breathitt County High School gym since Monday.
The school's gym is one of several locations that have opened doors to people displaced or in need because of the flooding. In the halls of the school, tables were piled high with donated clothing and blankets, toiletries, hand sanitizer, shoes and food.
Not all who were displaced by the flooding sought out the public shelters. Some slept in vehicles while others stayed with family or friends.
Shanna said the water “came all at once” and surrounded their home on Monday. Rescuers, who she thinks were with the fire department, came in a boat and told her family they had to leave.
They quickly grabbed some clothes. "You really didn't have time to think," she said, "because you was trying to get the kids out. That's the most important thing."
Left behind are family photos, a handcrafted kitchen island that George made, and the sewn blanket Shanna’s grandma made before her August death.
It could be a week before they can get back to survey the damage.
Nearby, John White bounced his 1-year-old grandson on his right knee.
He almost didn’t leave his home and seek shelter at Breathitt.
“I didn’t think I (ever) would have found myself in a position like this,” he said from his seat on a fold-out camping cot in the school gym. “I’m more of an independent person.”
But as the water rose around his home Monday night, he called 911. He could already see two baby strollers belonging to his grandson floating in the front yard. His main concern, he said, was getting his wife of 30 years, his five children and grandson to safety.
He had to leave behind his dogs — two poodles, a Dachshund and a larger dog, named, respectively, Bruce, Piper, Tucker and Ace — and his prized guitars and banjos, hoping the flood would damage neither.
“This is out of my control," he said with a small smile. "It’s only in God’s control.”
'This is life-changing'
David Watkins said it could take months to repair everything in his Armory Drive home.
The carpet was still sopping on Wednesday, and watery mud stood on the bathroom floor. A flowerpot that was once in the living room had washed into the kitchen, joining strewn clothes and shoes disorganized by the 3 feet of standing water that invaded David and his wife, Janet’s, home of 15 years.
The water started “splashing” in under the door around 2 p.m. Monday, said Janet, 53.
“It come so fast,” she said, “it was just unreal.”
Soon after, 2 inches of water took the place of the floor, driving the couple out of their home to stay with family nearby. Before they left, they moved as much as they could onto the kitchen table — clothes, spices, food — hoping the water wouldn’t reach the top.
David’s goal is to get one or two rooms livable in the coming days while the rest of the house undergoes renovations. The carpet needs to be ripped up; the floors replaced.
Janet lost some of her Barbie collector dolls she’s had since she was a little girl. Several kitchen chairs and a bench lay, overturned, on the muddy kitchen floor. David’s yearbooks from 1978 to 1982 lay muddy and upside down on the bedroom floor.
“Everything’s destroyed,” Janet said. They’ll have to start collecting furniture again.
They’re not alone. Two doors down, the Elams were gutting their home Wednesday afternoon, hauling dressers and rugs and dumping them outside.
Sam, 39, and Heather, 34, have lived in that home for 18 years. And they’ve never seen anything like the floods that soaked their belongings this week. They spent the last few nights living out of Sam’s truck, parked on high ground near the railroad track.
“It’s devastating,” Heather said. “You work your whole life for nothing, to throw it away.”
The couple had planned to build a barn on their property and add a roof to their trailer home. Any expenses like that will have to wait now. This flood damage isn’t going to just “be OK in six months,” Sam said.
“This is life-changing," he said.
They wondered if it might be less expensive to move somewhere else.
“But it’s not home.”
'It'll be home again'
Patricia Fugate, 51, has lived on Armory Lane her entire life. It's home.
The mud on the living room floor and the water marks on the walls don't look like it at the moment, but she'll restore it and bring her two grandsons, who live with her, home.
Fugate had to leave her home around 5:30 p.m. Monday. She waited as long as she could while the water filled her yard and creeped up her porch. Finally, her family waded through water to safety with a relative, leaving everything she owns behind.
"I just got out," she said, "because I have my two grandbabies. We left with... the clothes on our backs."
She came back to start the cleaning process Wednesday, with intermittent tears in her eyes.
"I feel like my life has just went down," she said. She'll have to replace so much — furniture and bedding, for starters. But she's also grateful, she said, for how much she was able to save. Her floor hasn't buckled yet like in other homes. Her mom's knickknacks are safe on the living room shelf.
"I just feel like... God's protecting me. (It's like) my mama just wrapped her arms around me and said 'you'll be all right.'"
Fugate said in six months, her homeplace won't be recognizable. She'll clean, rebuild, and replace as she needs to.
"This is my home. Nowhere else feels like home," she said.
And: "It'll be home again."
Reach news reporter Sarah Ladd at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @ladd_sarah.
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