Photo: Virginia Department of Emergency Management
UPDATE: The Virginia Department of Emergency Management said on Thursday (July 14), that they have made contact with all of the individuals who were unaccounted for.
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A series of severe storms rolled through Virginia, causing massive flooding on Tuesday (July 12) night. The storms dumped over six inches of rain in just a few hours, damaging hundreds of homes in rural Buchanan County.
The Buchanan County Sheriff's Office said that at least 44 people were unaccounted for and that search and rescue efforts were underway. Officials said that just because somebody is unaccounted for does not mean they are missing. They said there have been no reports of fatalities.
"This number reflects the number of people that has been reported to law enforcement by loved ones and family members as being unable to make contact with them. This does not mean the person is missing, it means we are attempting to reach and locate the person and check on their wellbeing," the sheriff's office wrote on Facebook.
The storms forced hundreds of residents to evacuate as the heavy rains inundated roadways and washed away houses.
"We were sitting at this post office over here, and the next thing you know, the house is floating on down through there. We thought it was going to wash off. Two of the houses washed off," Seth Owens told WCYB.
"One of our neighbors' driveways completely collapsed and fell down the mountain and fell down the creek," Dominick Fragoso told the news station. "The roads, if you walk up there, they're completely destroyed. Some of them snapped, some slid across other roads. There's some trees collapsed into cars. Nothing really as bad as what happened down here."