MILLSTONE, Ky. — When the north fork of the Kentucky River took over Buddy Young’s Millstone neighborhood in Letcher County last week, it filled his home with five feet of water.
“Everybody says, you know, ‘It comes fast,’ and it did,” said Young. “We didn’t have any time to do anything, just get out.”
Young, his wife and granddaughter found safety at a nearby church and much of the neighborhood watched the water rise from the highway above, he said.
“The road down this way was blocked,” said Young. “The road up that way was blocked. You couldn’t get out. No cellphone service. You couldn’t call 911… Never seen it in all my 38 years of living here, it ever doing that.”
Everything on the first floor of his home, his truck and much of what was in his recording studio, was damaged.
“I’m doing alright,” he said. “You just pick up and take off and just try to have a good attitude and try to help people when you can.”
Young has torn out the flood-damaged walls and by Monday morning, several piles of wood and other debris surrounded the home.
With a single shovel, he cleared out wet insulation from his kitchen.
A neighbor’s front door and a picnic table were beneath the porch, after drifting up to Young’s house.
Some of Young’s neighbors have already decided they won’t start over here, but he plans to rebuild what he had, he said.
“We’re still here and it’ll come back,” he told Spectrum News 1. “Right now, I’m just going to keep plucking along and just get it ready to put back.”