Four decade old family owned business destroyed by flooding in Letcher County

WHITESBURG, Ky. (WYMT) - There is plenty of devastation to go around following a record crest of the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Letcher County.

For one woman, the water not only washed away her business, it took a precious memory from her.

“That Cooper was in front of the tow truck. So the cars, the water was so high it was just floating the cars around,” Debi Sexton from Sexton’s Used Cars said.

The Mini-Cooper Debi is referring to was a gift from her husband two years ago right before he died. It celebrated all of the years of building their business together. Now it is filled with mud.

“The last car that my husband bought me before he passed away. I had it here,” Sexton said.

Sextons Used Cars has been a place for people in Whitesburg to buy vehicles for forty years. Those cars have been displaced and damaged by flood water.

Debi says all of the cars were submerged for hours. One black Impala was moved more than fifty feet while underwater.

“We didn’t know where it was. And then when the water started receding we could see the top of it. And then it finally went down enough for us to get it pushed out of the road.”

Debi said they still are looking for cars that washed away and worry that they might never be able to recover.

Copyright 2022 WYMT. All rights reserved.