BUCKHANNON, W.Va. — It was a harrowing Tuesday evening for those in central West Virginia as torrential rainfall poured down and swept through communities.
In Buckhannon, the flood waters entered Monea Edwards’ family home.
“We were panicking, this is our first time ever going through a flood,” Edwards described on MetroNews “Midday.” “We were all scared.”
Edwards said the waters rose up to her chest. She’s 5’9″ and worried that her family would get trapped in the house.
“We had to carry my aunt through the flood waters to get her to safety, because she’s not very tall and she’s disabled,” Edwards said. “So, we had to carry her to safety, and I also had to carry my mother through the flood waters because she’s on the shorter side as well.”
The house was flooded quickly. She said the family started getting phone calls about how the road was getting flooded, and there was little time to react.
“Within ten minutes, it went from being at our stairs and you could walk through it, to it being up to your knees, and then to your hips, and then it was in our house,” Edwards said.
There were some scary moments as Edwards tried to bring her family to safety.
“To walk through it with someone on your back, it’s challenging,” Edwards said. “You’re not worrying about just your own safety, you’re worrying about the person you’re carrying through the water.”
Edwards was emotional about the outpouring of support from the community and West Virginia as a whole. The West Virginia Wesleyan College campus has become the centralized location for donations to be dropped off.
She said her home’s washer and dryer have been destroyed, and the property is devastated.
“It’s been a lot of dirt and cleanup has been going on,” Edwards said. “It made it in through our front door and was about an inch from coming in through our garage door. Our fence got wiped out, our building got filled with water, and everything got thrown around and broken.”