Family copes with losing daughter, 14, in floods

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — On a perfect summer day, James Phillips hopped on his motorcycle with his 14-year-old daughter and took off through the West Virginia mountains. He and Mykala roared through three tanks of gas in 11 hours and came home exhilarated.

“She made me promise that every day I’d take her to school and come get her on my bike,” he recalled. “And I promised.”

The next day, his daughter was gone. As floodwaters ravaged their neighborhood, destroying their house and everything inside it, Mykala slipped from the grasp of her 15-year-old brother, and was swept away.

Mykala’s body was the last to be found among 23 victims of what the National Weather Service described as a 1,000-year flood in West Virginia. The grim discovery was made seven weeks after the deluge, under a pile of debris about six miles down Howard’s Creek, which normally meanders past the old Phillips home.

As their horror turns to enduring grief, the people who loved her are struggling to carry on.

James has thrown his energy into helping his family get a fresh start in a nearby rental home. His wife Becky, the main breadwinner, bears down on her housekeeping job at the Greenbrier resort.

Seven-year-old Carter, only vaguely aware of the weight of the tragedy, plays video games.

And Jayson, whose hands were the last to touch Mykala’s, immerses himself in his Junior ROTC Club at Greenbrier East High School, and spends time with his girlfriend. The quiet sophomore talks to visitors with “yes sir, no sir” efficiency, yet his military posture fails to hide his pain.

“My baby sister,” Jayson said, his eyes watering. “I just wonder why her and not me. She could have done great things in life.”

He said he picked on Mykala, as any big brother would. After all, she had her own bedroom, and Jayson had to share one with their brother. They had good times, too, “doing stuff we shouldn’t have been doing,” such as a certain incident involving friends, cousins, gunpowder and shotgun shells.

Jayson’s parents said he’s doing better, and that they’ve reassured him that “nobody is to blame for anything.”

But feelings of guilt still haunt him.

As the water poured in on June 23, James got his three children out of the house. Because of his chronic bad back, he tied the children together by looping an extension cord around them. Jayson gripped his siblings, too. But the water’s power snapped the cord, and Mykala disappeared into the raging torrent.

That moment eats away at the oldest brother. “I see it every time I close my eyes,” Jayson said.