Woman Dies After Car Swept Away in Flood Waters

A 61-year-old woman died when her car was swept away by flood waters Tuesday night.

Trigg County 911 Dispatch received a call at 8:01 p.m. indicating a vehicle had been washed off the roadway on KY 276 near the intersection with P'Pool Road in the Blue Springs area of Caldwell County. According to Paula Flood with Trigg County Emergency Management, a Pennyrile Electric utility crew that had responded to an outage call was working near the site and saw the roadway wash out from underneath a vehicle as it crossed the Long Pond Branch Culvert. 

Units from several area agencies responded and searched downstream about three miles, but were unsuccessful in locating the car. As waters dropped, an employee of the Trigg County Road Department was checking the roadway along Tyler Road which runs parallel to KY 276 and noticed what he thought were tires sticking out of the water and called searchers to that location. The car was submerged and upside down, so rescue workers were not immediately able to check the interior of the vehicle.

Emergency response personnel were able to recover a body from the car at 1:09 a.m. Wednesday. According to Flood, the victim was identified as 61-year-old Nancy Hyde Fox who had reportedly been visiting her brother for his birthday and was headed to her home just a few miles away. She is the mother of Trigg County Rescue Squad Chief Barry Fox who worked on the rescue and recovery effort.

Flood noted that searchers missed the vehicle in their first sweep of the area due to the depth and speed of the rushing water.