Rescues, road closures amid rain in Appalachia
Kentucky LOUISVILLE, KY. — firefighter Eddie Stacy was turning his fire truck around in the dark while responding to storm damage when he noticed a tiny light coming from the flooded Red River.
It was a cellphone a woman was waving from a car inundated with water that was rising by the minute.
Stacy and other members of the Hazel Green Fire Department sprang into action Sunday night, pulling five people from the car where water was up to the dashboard. Among those rescued were a 17-month-old boy and a woman who appeared to be having a seizure, Stacy said in a telephone interview Monday.
don’t do too much training on this water rescue,” Stacy said. “Instinct, it just kicks in.”
Heavy thu nderstorms pounded parts of Appalachia on Sunday and Monday, sending rivers out of their banks and leading to multiple water rescues, mudslides, road closures and power outages, offi- cials said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency Monday due to heavy rainfall across the state.
“We are acting swiftly to ensure the safety and security of Kentucky families and to get the needed help to our communities,” he said in a statement.
Stacy was part of a storm-response unit cutting down a tree that had fallen onto a road in Wolfe County, Kentucky, about 75 miles southeast of Lexington. But a mudslide started and Stacy was forced to move his firetruck.
As he was turning around, Stacy noticed something in the floodwaters just down the road — a woman sitting on a stalled car’s door window, waving her cellphone flashlight and yelling for help.
“Nobody could hear from where she was,” Stacy said. “That little flashlight when I was driving down the road just caught my attention. It was God, I tell you. It was God to have me in that place where I was supposed to be.”
Stacy attached a 100-foot rope to the truck and himself and helped retrieve the car’s occupants. Wolfe County Sheriff Chris Carson used a front-end loader to lift out the woman who had the sei- zure. The car’s occupants were brought to the nearby fire station to be checked out by emergency technicians. The woman with the sei- zure eventually recovered, Stacy said.