‘They looked like angels’: Woman recounts being rescued from home

86-year-old Emma Amburgey was rescued from her home in Letcher County Thursday morning

JEREMIAH, Ky. (WTVQ) – Countless people have lost everything in the floods and it’s left people heartbroken and in shock. An 86-year-old woman in Letcher County says she thought she was going to die.

Around 2:30 Thursday morning, Emma Amburgey says she woke up to a phone call from her daughter about the rising waters.

“She said, ‘look out your door mom’ and I looked out my back door that goes onto my deck and water was flowing through my backyard like a river,” says Amburgey. “I said ‘oh my God, Kim, I can’t get out of here, the water’s too deep’.”

Amburgey’s daughter was stuck in her own house and couldn’t get to her mom to help, but luckily, other family nearby was able to be at her door in minutes.

“I looked at those boys standing there and they looked like angels coming to my rescue,” says Amburgey. “I got on one of the boy’s backs and they carried me through the water to safety.”

Amburgey says she’s thankful to be alive.

“I was just thinking ‘Lord, this is going to be it for me, I’ll never get out of here’.”

Amburgey says she’s heartbroken by the devastation the flooding did to her house, a house she grew up in and has lived in for the last 26 years.

“It was all family around here, we had wonderful childhoods just playing and visiting each other and all that so we’re sentimental to it but I have to be strong,” says Amburgey. “I’ll get through this but I don’t think it will be in this house.”

Amburgey says an inspection is being done on her house to determine if it’s salvageable, but for now she’s staying with her daughter in Whitesburg.

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