Riley Noble and Amber Smith’s Four Children Die After Being Swept Away in Kentucky Flash Floods

Four siblings were swept away by vicious floodwaters in Kentucky on Thursday as their parents struggled in vain to keep them, according to a family member.

When high tide flooded their Knott County home, Riley Noble and Amber Smith hid onto the roof with their baby, 18-month-old Chance; Nevaeh, 4; Riley Jr., 6 years old; and Maddison, 8. But when the structure was swept away from beneath them, all six “got into a tree,” said cousin Brittany Trejo.

There, Noble and Smith “hugged the children for a few hours before the high tide came and washed them away[ed] all of them go at once,” “Trejo Talk to Lexington Herald-Leader. “The mother and father were trapped in the tree for eight hours before help arrived.”

Rescuers found the bodies of Riley Jr and Nevaeh yesterday, according to Trejo. She said Maddison and Chance’s remains were discovered early Friday. One The GoFundMe campaign has grown so far a little under $5,000 for funeral expenses.

The Noble family is just one of countless families struggling with their new reality following the catastrophic flooding in Kentucky over the past few days. Billed as “one of the worst, most devastating floods” in Kentucky history, Governor Andy Beshear on Friday confirmed that 16 people had died and dozens more were awaiting rescue.

“It’s going to be a lot higher,” Beshear said at a Friday news conference about the death toll, before confirm that four kids was one of six minors who died in the flood. “We may even have lost our entire family.”

In the early morning hours of Thursday, Amber Nickles watched her home disappear.

As Nickles and her fiancé watched in horror from a small apartment above their garage, the two saw their Hindman, Kentucky main home lifted off the foundation and sailed down a creek swelled above the ferocious floodwaters.

Nickles told The Daily Beast on Friday: “My mother, who underwent major surgery last week, was inside. “And so are my two older brothers, aged 56 and 58… One of them is physically and emotionally disabled.”

The house that eventually became a resting place is about 400 feet away, Nickles’ fiancé, video game developer Marc Wyzomirski, said from the perch above the garage, where he and Nickles continued. shelter in place.

Remarkably, they survived.

“I don’t know how they lived, but by some miracle [the house] Wyzomirski told The Daily Beast. “It clung to the neighbor’s house, making it no longer afloat. And that’s where it is now… If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it… It’s serious like some Wizard of Oz Damned.”

Nickles and Wyzomirski have maintained contact with the outside world thanks to a portable generator they are using to charge their phones. The two have no way of getting out, as all paths are blocked – by their dumped house, where Nickles’ mother and siblings are still present.

Nickles said: “A fireman was there last night. “The door was jammed and he opened it for her, but she refused to leave because of her two pets.”

Wyzomirski said he and Nickles were able to rescue their own animals with just a few seconds to spare.

“We got them at the right time,” he recalls. “It’s like, one minute you look outside and you say, ‘Wow, that’s getting big.’ And then the next minute you’re like, ‘If we go out, we’re going to be swept away. “

All three of their cars were destroyed, and two cars of unknown origin were swept into their yard. One of Nickles’ brother’s vans simply drifted away, and was found about a quarter of a mile down the road, its head protruding from the fast-moving floodwaters.

One neighbor’s roof is now leaning against the fence of their property, Nickles said, describing the situation as “an absolute nightmare”.

Wyzomirski, whose sister Sarah set up, said: “We survived, it was just a miracle. a GoFundMe page to help them rebuild their lives. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

The National Guard and other state agencies rescued at least 300 people statewide on Friday. And Beshear warned Friday that the worst may not be over as rain is expected on Monday across Kentucky – raising fears that floodwater levels could rise again.

“We have to act quickly after the water recedes tomorrow,” he said on Friday.

As of Friday morning, flash flood warnings were still in effect in parts of Kentucky and West Virginia, home to more than 21,000 residents. no electricity. The Kentucky Department of Environment and Energy said flooding in the eastern part of the state damaged about 21 drinking water systems.

Kathy Pruitt told The Daily Beast that she and her uncle were also among countless families who lost everything.

On Wednesday night, Pruitt said her family was awakened by rising water, forcing her aunt, Denise Boyd, to carry her husband Terry – who is blind, amputated and on dialysis – to their truck . The mother, whom Pruitt describes as “a little thing” in her 60s, also has to bear one of her sons, who has “amputated an arm and recently received a kidney transplant”.

“When she got everyone on the truck, she said the water was up to her neck,” Pruitt said, adding that Boyd’s other son has special needs.

The family was forced to stay in their truck as they decided their next steps. To make matters worse, Pruitt added, it was the fact that “everyone they knew around them also lost everything they owned”.

“They were trying to get someone to clear the mud to see if they could pick up anything,” she said, adding that she had set up a GoFundMe campaign for her and her uncle.

Skeet Howard, 66, told The Daily Beast he has never seen flooding this bad in his life.

Howard, whose house is located higher up, finally regained power on Friday. A close friend, who lives about 30 minutes away, with no electricity or water, flushed her toilet from the pool. He took her to the post office to get her mail, but the mailboxes were flooded and everything inside was dilapidated, he said.

“When I went out to get gas… I saw the bridge collapsed, so it was hard for people to evacuate even if they wanted to,” he said, adding that there was “stuff from the houses piled up along the highway. “.

Back at Hindman, Wyzomirski and Nickles took advantage of anything and everything they could, and are now “cramming everything we have” into the apartment. They say there is severe water damage downstairs, and black mold has begun to take root. According to Wyzomirski, the roof there has leaked and is now uninhabitable.

“We’re alive,” he told The Daily Beast. “Besides, we’re not doing very well, I suppose.”

They’ll stay as long as they can, but the basement “was full of trash and a stench rose,” Nickles said.

“It was so overwhelming, we almost didn’t know what to do,” Wyzomirski added. “We’re trying to find a way out of here, but we don’t know where to go and how to get there.”