Kentucky Mom Shares Harrowing Tale of Tying Herself to Kids During Flood: ‘If We Didn’t Make It, Then We Could Be Found Together’

A Kentucky mom shared with CNN’s Ana Cabrera the harrowing tale of how she tied herself to her two children with a vacuum cord during a deadly flood, hoping that she could save them, but if that failed, at least their bodies would be found together.

Cabrera interviewed Jessica Willett on Monday’s episode of CNN Newsroom in the wake of last week’s floods that are known to have killed 35 people so far and left hundreds missing and numerous homes and bridges destroyed. Among the dead were four siblings who were ripped out of their parents’ arms by the strong currents.

Heartbreaking: The 4 siblings from Knott County, KY who died in last week’s flooding – Top left: Madison (8), bottom left: Nevaeh (4), top right: Riley (6), and bottom right: Chance (2). Reporting by CNN’s Sara Smart and Caroll Alvarado pic.twitter.com/Uest2yK3qp

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 1, 2022

Cabrera had just covered that heartbreaking report from CNN correspondent Evan McMorris Santoro when she introduced Willett, reporting how she had heard sounds coming from her Jackson, Kentucky home’s foundation just before midnight last Wednesday. The CNN anchor showed a video Willett had taken of the flood waters rushing past her house. Her home would be swept away only 10 minutes later, but thankfully Willett and her two children, ages 3 and 11, survived.

There was “no warning,” Willett told Cabrera, with the water already at the door when she opened it.

“The first thing that went through my mind is that I didn’t know if we would be swept away or not,” said Willett, “and I’ve got to try and save my kids. So I grabbed two bathrobe ties and I tied them together and that wasn’t long enough so I cut the cord off the vacuum cleaner and tied us all three together.”

“Because I thought I could try to save us or, you know, if we didn’t make it, then we could be found altogether,” she added, getting a little choked up as she shared her story.

“As a mother, I can’t imagine having to think like that,” Cabrera sympathized. “What made you think, though, to cut the cord to your vacuum?”

“I don’t know,” Willett replied, saying she had “nothing else” and the cord was “the closest thing I could get to a rope.”

She went to explain how she and the two children huddled together in the living room for awhile, but “the water was coming in,” so they moved to her daughter’s room and sat on the mattress as they heard the house “popping and cracking” around them.

Willett thought the house was “going to rip apart,” she continued, and hoped that they could hold on to the mattress and “make it out okay.”

“Luckily,” she said, the house “got sandwiched between a tree stump and the hillside and that basically sandwiched us together and kept it from being completely ripped apart.”

The house had been ripped from its foundation and carried down the road “about 100 feet or so,” Willett said, and she was worried about a mudslide so she opened a window and they all climbed up to the flooded roadway.

Willett and her children were staying with her mother, she told Cabrera, and they had insurance but not flood insurance “because we weren’t in a flood zone, so I don’t know what to do.”

There were “a bunch” of people in her neighborhood who now had lost everything, Willett said, but hadn’t had flood insurance because they were not in a flood zone, including her aunt. “I really hope FEMA can come in and help us.”

Cabrera mentioned to her viewers a GoFundMe account that Willett had set up for her family. “I know that you are asking for any bit of help, including prayers…I sure hope that people come to help your family and show the generosity that I know exists and, please, you know, keep in touch with us and we will do what we can also to lift you and your family up.”

“We are ok, shaken but we are ok,” wrote Willett in the GoFundMe fundraiser description, telling how they had lost their home and car, and thanking everyone “from the bottom of my heart.”

In an update at the end of the episode, Cabrera announced that the GoFundMe had raised over $30,000, surpassing Willett’s goal of $5,000, and thanked her viewers for their generosity. At the time this article was being written, the account topped $40,000 and collected dozens of prayers and supportive comments.

Watch the video above, via CNN.