Laurel D'Antoni, the wife of Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni, needed to be rescued by boat from their home in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., last week as record flooding ravaged the region and killed at least 23 people.
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Mike was at the NBA Draft in Brooklyn on Thursday monitoring weather reports. He had not spoken to his wife since her afternoon report that a creek had overflown and was creeping toward their offseason house, located near The Greenbrier resort nestled in the Allegheny Mountains.
Later in the evening, with water rising, a stranger arrived in a rowboat and brought Laurel, the D'Antoni's two cats and two other men to safety.
"Talk about chivalry," Laurel recalled to the Houston Chronicle on Monday. "There was one life jacket that they gave me. It was white water. It was really rough. He's telling us, 'If the boat goes over, swim horizontally, stay away from the trees and say goodbye to your cats.' This man rowed three men and one women in this boat in this water. They take me away and go back for other families."
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Severe storms, which the National Weather Service called a "one in a thousand year event," caused widespread flooding to communities near the West Virginia-Virginia border, damaging or destroying thousands of area homes and businesses. The death toll reached 23 on Monday and searches for those missing were ongoing. More than 18,000 people were still without power.
Additional rainfall is expected this week.
Please keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers affected by these horrific flood waters. #StayStrongWV pic.twitter.com/lbkB1DwF0S
— The Greenbrier (@The_Greenbrier) June 24, 2016
Laurel said she stayed with a friend overnight and returned to her home in the morning to learn of the damage, which she said was within repair. She didn't tell her husband about the rescue until she was safe later in the night in order to "let him draft well."
"We're so lucky," Laurel said. "We had damage, but that's nothing. We had a friend of ours who lost everything he owns, his house, his belonging, everything. He's staying at our house. We activated the NBA, too, just to get clothing and toiletries and anything just to help."
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The D'Antonis urged donations to the United Way or the American Red Cross to help supplement flood relief and cleanup efforts in the region.
LRT: D'Antonis are rallying friends across NBA to help w/ W. Va relief efforts. You can donate via Red Cross here: https://t.co/E4nxfTGBnw
— Howard Beck (@HowardBeck) June 28, 2016
