Stories

In the short three minutes it took him to reach his house, floodwater swept through the valley bottom below and crashed into the family home owned by his father Roy, 86. Steve had no idea. But the phone was ringing, and it was his sister, who’d gotten a call from their dad, who said he was wet up to his knees and didn’t know why.

“Water’s coming in everywhere,” he’d told her.

The family waded to safety, and the Pressleys were relatively fortunate compared to some of their neighbors. Still, the water destroyed one room – a garage Carroll had meticulously remodeled as a kitchen and family gathering spot for Mary Ellen, who cooked for her family on its wood stove. Water filled their remaining crawl space, soaked into floors and walls, destroyed their surface well and swept away some outbuildings where Carroll, a collector, kept the memorabilia of a lifetime.

“It was a tiny house when we bought it,” said Donella, “nothing special about it, just a collection of nooks and crannies, but even then it felt like home, and it’s really home now. We just hope it feels like home again.”