LITTLETON, W.Va. — Rachel McDiffitt and her boyfriend were at her home on Hornet Highway at Littleton Friday night when the rain was falling. Her brother stopped by for a visit and soon decided he was going to head up the road to the pop machine. When he walked outside, he realized nobody was going anywhere. Water covered the highway and within minutes was under McDiffitt’s mobile home.
“I grabbed my most important possessions, which were my daughter’s possessions who passed away two years ago, and put them in my car. I thought they’d be safe there,” she explained. “We had to walk up around the property, through trees and everything just to get out in waist deep water.”
The forded the river which had formed on her property and made it to a family member who was waiting in a vehicle on the other side to get them out. A day later she returned to find all of her possessions, including those most important to her were ruined.
“Everything in my car was ruined. My car was ruined my house was ruined,” she explained. The most heartbreaking loss were the possessions of her late infant daughter who died two years ago. “I lost her footprints, her hair, and her first outfits that she wore and I never washed. They’re now covered in mud. I lost almost everything that’s irreplaceable.”
Now staying with her boyfriend’s mother, McDiffitt knows she’s not alone. Her boyfriend’s brother’s home was washed off the foundation. Dozens of family have pitched in to try and help her clean up and salvage what she can.