Flash floods kill 6, cause widespread damage in West Virginia

TRIDEPLHIA, W.Va. — First responders in West Virginia are calling Saturday’s flash floods the largest mass casualty event they’ve ever handled.

At this point, six people have died, including a 3-year-old girl and her mom, and two others are still missing.

A Channel 11 crew in Triadelphia saw the damage from these devastating floods firsthand, from cars dangling off a cliff that goes down to the creek to mangled shipping containers moved by the swift waters.

As search and rescue crews waded through the waters, searching for the missing, they marked an ‘x’ on each vehicle they looked through and determined that no one was stuck inside.

Kyleigh Shotton, 36, and her 3-year-old daughter, Parker, were killed in the rapidly risking flood water.

Kyleigh’s husband and Parker’s dad says he doesn’t know how he’s going to go on, but he has to for his girls and his surviving son.

Craig Collins lives right up the hill from the creek and said Saturday night he heard a loug bang.

He then saw shipping containers coming “pretty fast” down the creek, along with cars with their headlines still on.

Carin Kurl said it happened so fast. Four inches of rain fell in 30 minutes.

“There was huge puddles in the middle of the streets. I literally almost got stuck on a main road going up through North Park in Wheeling.”

She was back out along the creek on Monday as dive teams waded through the water, searching every inch of the debris.

“We’ve been looking through creeks to see if we can find anyone stuck.”

We also learned that Kyleigh Shotton has been involved in 4h at the West Alexander Fairgrounds just across the state line in Pennsylvania since she was a little girl.

That close-knit community is now collecting donations to help those who lost loved ones or had their homes literally swept off their foundations.

"We know them all. We know them all. This is a gathering place,“ Barb Read said. ”That’s why we decided ... this will affect everyone here in this area ... everyone knows someone who was affected."

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW