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“I thought I was going to die,” said Ida Proffitt, recounting Tuesday night's harrowing escape from rising flood waters surround her Buchanan County residence.

GRUNDY — Ida Proffitt said she can’t stop her hands from shaking, and can’t stop thinking about the rising floodwaters that she and her husband waded through Tuesday night as they left their Buchanan County home to find higher ground.

“It’s like I can’t calm down. … You’d really have to be there to know the fear,” Proffitt said Thursday afternoon.

Proffitt, 61, told her story at the Comfort Inn in Grundy, her second refuge since fleeing through knee-deep water from her home in the Oakwood community, near the Whitewood area that authorities described as the worst hit by the rain-fueled torrent.

At the hotel, Proffitt was among several guests whose residences were damaged by the flood, manager Melissa Webb said.

Proffitt recounted how on Tuesday night, she was getting ready for bed when she heard a vehicle's horn blowing outside. She went to see what was the matter. It was Kathy Keen and her husband, friends who lived across Dismal River Road, trying to alert the residents of a small mobile home park that water was rising around them.

The water came from Dismal Creek, which was out of its banks and carrying all manner of debris through what had been the yards and parking areas for about 18 mobile homes, about half of them occupied.

The overwhelming smell of the flood is what Proffitt remembers most.

“It stunk, oh lord,” Proffitt said.

Proffitt said the water was getting deeper as she and her husband pushed through it. But they made it across the road to the home of the neighbor who had sounded the alarm. The Keens’ home sat higher, but the water seemed like it still might come inside, Proffitt said.

Her friend “said if we had to, we’d cut a hole and get on the roof,” Proffitt said.

Proffitt called the experience of watching the water come up all around the house “really scary.”

“I thought I was going to die,” she said.

Proffitt said that she, her husband, and the Keens watched as an unmoored pontoon boat pushed a parked vehicle into the side of the Proffitts’ mobile home, then smashed their front porch before the flood swept the boat away. They counted 11 vehicles floating past, including a pickup truck with a man sitting in the back, Proffitt said.

Some of their neighbors could not get across the road but retreated to higher ground behind the mobile homes and spent the night there, Proffitt said.

By Wednesday, the water was back down and the Proffitts could start to take stock of their losses.

There was the damage from the collisions with the boat, vehicle and other flood-borne flotsam. The flood had not entered their mobile home but the roof let in so much rain that everything inside was waterlogged, Proffitt said. It was going to take time to work things out with the landlord and with their own renters insurance, Proffitt said.

The Keens also were dealing with the flood’s aftermath without electricity or phone service, said their daughter, Megan Hall. The water got to their porch but never came indoors, Hall said.

Still, it was the biggest flood the Keens could recall, even bigger than one in 1977 that set the prior local high-water record, Hall said.

Harris Branch Road resident Richard Goss speaks with Buchanan County Department of Social Services employees who delivered water and non-perishable food on Thursday near Whitewood, Va. Goss said that an unoccupied mobile home, at right, located uphill from his own home blocked the main force of a mud slide and saved his home from being washed away during Tuesday night's flood.

Harris Branch Road resident Richard Goss said that an unoccupied mobile home located uphill from his own home saved his home from being washed away during Tuesday night's flood when it blocked the main force of a mud slide. The back yard of Goss' home Thursday, July 14, 2022, near Whitewood, Va.

Employees and volunteers from the Buchanan County Department of Social Services deliver water and non-perishable food to Harris Branch Road residents Thursday, July 14, 2022, near Whitewood, Va.

Buchanan County Sheriff deputies and workers from the county's department of social services drop off cleaning supplies and water at the Red Cross shelter at the Twin Valley Elementary School Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Oakwood.

Ted Watson volunteers with the Buchanan County Department of Social Services to deliver water and non-perishable food to Harris Branch Road resident Ruby Horn Thursday, July 14, 2022, near Whitewood, Va..

A truck is washed onto a creek bank Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Pilgrim's Knob.

A man clears mud out of the yard of a business after the Dismal Creek overflowed its banks, seen here Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Whitewood.

A home is marked after emergency crews searched it, seen here Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Pilgrim's Knob.

When the Dismal Creek overflowed its banks it washed cars on top of each other at M&M Body Shop, seen here Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Whitewood.

The Whitewood House of Worship Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Whitewood, Va.

The Red Cross shelter was established in the Twin Valley Elementary School, seen here Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Oakwood.

Buchanan County Department of Social Services employee Eric Marshall, center, loads mandarin oranges into his truck at the Red Cross shelter at the Twin Valley Elementary School Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Oakwood.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management lists the following items as needed as of Thursday: cleaning supplies, bleach, disinfectants, rubber gloves, rubber boots, heavy duty trash bags, shovels, paper towels, propane tanks for gas grills, generators, gas cans, funnels, buckets, Gatorade, mops, and hygiene items.

NO donations of clothing items, water, or perishable food are being accepted at present.

• Monetary donations can be made to:

United Way of Southwest Virginia

www.redcross.org/local/virginia

• Physical donations can be delivered to

Twin Valley School, 9017 Riverside Drive, Oakwood, VA 24631

Donation contact is: Denise.McGeorge@dss.virginia.gov

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Mike Gangloff covers crime, breaking news and courts in the New River Valley. He can be reached at mike.gangloff@roanoke.com or (540) 381-1669.

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“I thought I was going to die,” said Ida Proffitt, recounting Tuesday night's harrowing escape from rising flood waters surround her Buchanan County residence.

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