DEMING, Wash. — “It was just shocking.”
That is how Sarah Hansen describes watching the house in Deming, where she and her boyfriend, Mikhail Khazak, lived, floating away on the Nooksack River last Thursday morning during historic flooding.
Video shot the day before shows the house, yard, trees – all the property that suddenly washed away.
Despite the raging waters, Khazak told KIRO 7 he felt the rock wall he’d built would hold.
But then they started hearing their trees crash into the river Wednesday night.
“Even to the very end, that night, I was like ‘we’re not going to have a front yard in the morning, but the house will be here.’ What happened was unimaginable,” said Khazak.
Sarah said they didn’t have much time to gather their belongings.
“When the porches started to go, we were too afraid to be in there,” said Hansen.
Erosion continues along the banks.
After the interviews, our camera caught another maple tree falling into the river.
Meanwhile, Khazak says he did not have insurance, and they lost just about everything inside the house he bought 25 years ago.
“Life is like that. When it’s time to say goodbye, it’s not going to wait for you to be ready,” said Khazak.
The couple is now staying at a hotel.
A GoFundMe account is set up to help with their recovery.