83-year-old whose home was damaged by flooding staying positive despite clean-up, "Just have to fix it."

CBS News

3 hours ago

83-year-old whose home was damaged by flooding staying positive despite clean-up
83-year-old whose home was damaged by flooding staying positive despite clean-up
83-year-old whose home was damaged by flooding staying positive despite clean-up
An 83-year-old self-described "go-getter" says he won't let the massive hole in his driveway that Friday's storm left get him down. Instead, Bud Parker is looking forward to the challenge of rebuilding it.
The still-working brickmason built a bridge for his driveway above the creek in front of his home in the 1980s. Friday's storm brought flooding to his Old Fifth Ave street in North Versailles.
A dead tree got caught underneath the bridge, with the pressure ultimately damaging the bridge, opening up a large hole.
Many people might respond to a massive hole in their driveway with some version of sadness, but not Parker, who speaks with a strong southern accent.
"Just have to fix it," Parker said he thought when he first saw the damage. "It ain't nothing to get excited about."
His home is a few feet off the ground, so it fared better than other homes down the street. Fifteen homes were flooded in North Versailles, with 10 people displaced.
"Everybody's been cleaning up around here, in the car lot up there, up the street, they got flooded," Parker said. "And that third house up there, they had to use a rowboat to get to the people out of the house."
West Wilmerding firefighters told KDKA-TV that a woman and her child had to be rescued.
"We've got good people out here basically, so everyone works together when we've got to do something."
As for how he'll fix his driveway, he says the first step is to start jackhammering.
When asked how he'll do it by himself at 83, he said, "I have one laborer."
That "laborer" is a 77-year-old woman who lives next to him.
"We've been friends for years," Parker said. "She lost two husbands. I lost two wives."
In two months, he expects his driveway to be as good as new.
He's somehow found a way to stay positive despite the mess he's left to clean up.
"I just think positive all the time," Parker said. When I was a kid down in South Carolina, I was a cotton picker. I've come a long way," he said.