Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Search on for victims in Kentucky flood

Mud and debris hampers recovery

Roland Marcum looks Wednesday for his brother-in-law Scott Johnson under the debris of Marcum’s father-in-law’s mobile home after flooding in Flat Gap, Ky. (Associated Press)
Bruce Schreiner Associated Press

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 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 Monday ravaged this rural eastern Kentucky community.

He is still missing. Three others are confirmed dead, and the fate of four more remains uncertain. Families reported them missing, but they could be stranded in their homes, without power or phone service.

Rescue teams are slogging through knee-deep mud, door-to-door, across the rugged Appalachian terrain, painting an orange X on each structure they search. Desperate families roam the banks of the swollen creek, looking for their lost loved ones.

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, 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 cemetery on a hill overlooking the creek that had swallowed his son, Kevin Johnson was so overcome with grief he sometimes struggled to speak. He had watched his son push the boy to safety in the branches of a catalpa tree and hoist his Nana onto his back, only to be swept away.

“Scott wouldn’t turn her loose, that’s why he died,” said Veronica Marcum, Scott Johnson’s sister.

The grandmother, Willa Mae Pennington, was found dead Tuesday among debris from the family’s mobile homes, Johnson County Coroner J.R. Frisby confirmed.

Frisby identified the second known casualty as Herman Eddie May Sr.. 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.

The body of Richard Blair, 22, was found Wednesday afternoon on a creek bank in a pile of tree debris and downstream from the rubble of a mobile home, the coroner said.

Rescue crews battled swarming mosquitoes, oppressive humidity and thick mud. Utility crews lined the roads, trying to restore power to thousands. A convoy of National Guard vehicles and heavy equipment rolled through the hardest-hit areas.

Seven cadaver dogs are aiding in the search, which stretches more than 8 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.