‘She didn’t get out.’ Grandson found Breathitt County woman’s body after KY floods

With floodwaters raging and no communication, Ronda Combs couldn’t contact her 83-year-old mother Gilla Ann Miller last Thursday morning in Breathitt County.

Miller lived in the Hardshell community at Troublesome Creek only a 15 to 20 minute drive from Combs’ home in Perry County. But rising water blocked all the roads and word was spreading that people across the region were trapped or missing.

Combs posted a message on a nearby church’s Facebook page: “Could someone if anyway possible please check on my mother?” If she wasn’t found at a relative’s home, Combs thought, “she’s probably still in the house.”

“She didn’t get out,” said Combs, describing how her mother was one of at least 37 people who died in the floods statewide.

The next day, Combs’ husband, Michael, and son, Matthew, were able to reach Miller’s home on all-terrain vehicles. The waters were up to the ceiling. Her son, 31, was the first one to find his grandmother’s body in the home.

With communications down, the family could not immediately notify county officials about the death. They went back to Perry County to get a truck, prepared to take Miller’s body to a funeral home themselves.

But when they got back to Breathitt County, Combs said “thank God” there were multiple officials to help remove Miller from the home properly and take her to the state medical examiner’s office.

Across the road, Combs’ aunt and uncle, along with their daughter and a cousin, were surrounded by water and had to be rescued by a helicopter. That wasn’t possible at her mother’s home because the water was so high that a helicopter couldn’t land, Combs said.

A neighbor who lived a few houses away from Miller also died in the flood, said Combs.

Physically active at 83, Miller liked to play the outdoor game Cornhole, and card and board games. She loved organized senior citizens activities, her church, her relatives and friends, and her cat Vixen, who disappeared in the flood. She liked to garden and travel and wanted to maintain her independence, son Robert Patton said.

Miller knew the creek well enough that in the past, she always evacuated when flooding threatened. Patton said he thinks water was likely already surrounding the house Thursday before Miller realized what was happening.

One of the things she liked most about her home was the swinging bridge that linked the house and the highway. On Thursday, it was swept away.

This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 2:59 PM.