PIKEVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A mudslide pushed a tiny Pike County church from its foundations on Friday as storms brought heavy rain and flooding.
George Tackett lives across the creek from the Ratliff Old Regular Baptist Church in the Shelby-Dry Fork area. He told the Appalachian News-Express (https://bit.ly/1MPzqEG) he saw destruction as it was happening.
“It happened over about 30 minutes,” he said. “I heard the popping and cracking and came out and saw all the trees and dirt coming down on it.”
Lloyd Carroll is a member of the church, which meets one weekend a month in a former one-room schoolhouse. He arrived about an hour after the slide to help pull photos and Bibles from the building.
“I’m heartbroken,” he said. “I loved that church house. A church is more than the building, but I loved it.”
Member Marsha Coleman said other members told her the church had gotten pushed out into the road, but she didn’t want to believe it until she saw it.
“It’s our home,” she said of the church. “We’ve got nowhere else to go. It’s a while before we were going to meet again, but now I don’t know where we’ll meet.”
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Information from: Appalachian News-Express, https://www.news-expressky.com
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