Jessica Willett spoke with FOX Weather on Tuesday, August 2, recalling the night her home was destroyed by the historic flooding that hit eastern Kentucky last week.
The mom of two knew things were bad as soon as she opened the door. A video recording she took during the stormy, pitch-dark night showed the brown floodwaters rushing like river rapids around her front porch.
Willett said they were inside the house the whole time and the flooding swept them off the foundations, swept them about 100 feet down the holler. According to Willett, she was hoping and praying that the house would not rip apart, but they could already hear it popping and cracking.
Willett uses vacuum cord to keep her family safe during the flooding
She added they were lucky that they got stuck between a tree stump and the hillside as that was the only thing that kept them from being ripped apart. Willett realized that she would not be able to walk through it with her two kids with floodwaters fast and strong enough to move houses.
To keep her family together and prevent them from being washed away by the raging floods, Willett looked around her home to see what she could use to keep them safe. She said she grabbed three bathrobe ties, and that still was not long enough. She thought of the next best thing to a rope, which was a vacuum cord, so she cut it in half and tied them together.
For Willett, using the vacuum cord to tie herself to her kids was not only a way to save them all. She said that if she were to fail, she wanted to ensure that the remains of her family would be found together. Willett has set up a GoFundMe page to help her family during these tough times.
Willett's home was one of many houses hit by historic flooding in eastern Kentucky last week. Seven to 10 inches of rain fell in parts of the Appalachian region between Tuesday and Thursday, with majority of the rain falling in just a few hours early Thursday morning.
After flooding, heat wave the next problem for Kentucky
Willett's town of Jackson received nearly eight inches of rainfall during the unprecedented storm. At least 37 people are now confirmed dead in the flooding, but the death toll is still expected to rise. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Monday that he is worried about how many more people they will find and how long it is going to take to find some people who are out there.
A potentially life-threatening heat wave is forecast to hit the flood-ravaged region on Wednesday and Thursday, with temperatures soaring into the mid-80s to 90 degrees. According to the National Weather Service in Jackson, Kentucky, temperatures in some areas will feel hotter than 100 degrees when humidity is factored in.
Many homes struck by the flood in Kentucky are unable to power air conditioning units and provide shelter from this heat, as they are still without electricity, according to NPR.
