ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – Many families in Roanoke County spent Memorial Day cleaning up after Sunday’s flash flooding caused major damage to their homes.
Monday, 10 News visited with people on South Park Circle, which is in the Cave Spring area. People were going through what they lost and putting many of their belongings out near the street.
"I was just dumbfounded. It's like, what do we do now?" Chris Kocher said.
Water poured into her basement Sunday, reaching a level of 15 feet and touching the basement ceiling. She lost everything inside.
"It's gotten high before but never like this,” she said.
The flood water also ripped a fence in her yard out of the ground.
Across the street, there was still what looks like a small lake in a man’s yard as he continues to pump water out to the street. His neighbor, Julie Ritchie, had water running through the bottom floor of her house.
"Yesterday morning I wouldn't have imagined that by the afternoon my home would be flooded,” she said.
Neighbors were helping each other clean up after they helped rescue a couple in their late 80s the night before from a house at the end of the cul-de-sac.
More than 2 feet of water poured into the house, destroying everything touching the ground, including couches, beds and tables. After 28 years, the couple’s children said their parents will have to move out.
"It's just been nauseating to deal with the mud and to see such a beautiful home caked in soot. It's heartbreaking,” Tom Norkus said.
Emergency crews rushed to help people still inside their homes Sunday night. The water rose to a shocking height in a matter of hours. One picture shows water levels about 5 feet high, engulfing cars parked on the street.
People living there said this is the worst rain they’ve ever seen besides the flood of 1985. Many of them have been living on the street more than three decades.