LYNCHBURG, Va. – Several people are without a home after severe flooding in a downtown Lynchburg apartment complex forced them out.
There’s no word on when or if they’ll be brought back in, but it’s been a nightmare for those who lost nearly everything.
“Pretty bad, huh?” Robert Sheusi said as he looked around the room at what was left of his apartment and belongings.
Destruction has been Sheusi’s unfortunate reality for almost three weeks now, and he’s not alone.
“There’s not much I’m going to be able to take,” he says.
Water unexpectedly filled units on the first floor at Piedmont Mills. In some rooms, water sat at least five feet high. Investigators are still searching for the exact cause.
Since that day, Sheusi and his neighbors have been staying up the road at the Lynchburg Grand Hotel.
“It was just an awful experience,” Geraldo Alonso says. “Probably everything on the bottom floor got damaged.”
Alonso and his family of four have lived in Piedmont Mills for four years and were home the day their lives turned upside down.
“We opened the door, there was like a wall of water coming in because there was just more in the courtyard,” he says. “We closed the door and we just had to wait it out.”
Alonso says he and his neighbors have been told to find a new home. While many say it’s probably best for health reasons, they aren’t sure where to go. Not to mention, expenses are racking up as they continue their lives from hotel rooms.
“I wish they would do more,” Alonso says. “We’re just kind of stuck right now. We aren’t getting answers and we have no direction as to what next steps are.”
Officials say those answers won’t come until the investigation is finishing. Adding the main goal is safety and to make sure something like this never happens again.