Hilton Hampton Inn Lobby Underwater, Guest Cars Swept Across The Parking Lot

A guest at Hilton’s Hampton Inn in Weston, West Virginia, headed downstairs Tuesday evening to use the hotel pool. Instead, the pool came to him.

Jeremy Thacker found muddy, thigh-high flood water racing across the hotel’s first floor. The front doors had been knocked out of their frame, alarms were sounding, and water was surging through the lobby and breakfast area. He looked outside and his vehicle was no longer where he had parked it.

“When I looked out the doors, my car had floated halfway across the parking lot. I was shocked”

Another guest at the hotel said that the hotel remarkably retained power even as coffee-brown water covered the ground.

“Right now this option is much better than a shelter and a life boat. If the power goes out that may change a whole lot!”

The National Weather Service was warning people not to travel unless they were evacuating and to seek higher ground immediately. The hotel’s upper floors were higher ground. Cleanup teams reached the property early Wednesday. Everyone was told to leave the property. The hotel’s page on Hilton’s website says they are ‘temporarily closed’.

The rainfall was extraordinary. Weston’s mayor said the city had been left without a functioning grocery store. Six inches fell in Lewis County in less than three hours. One location received 4.5 inches in 37 minutes.

The footage was dramatic enough that it was being repurposed to go viral in social media with other stories, for instance one post got ‘Community Noted’ after claiming it was from a flooded hospital.

Fortunately this wasn’t anything like what happened to guests at the J.W. Marriott Masai Mara where they were nearly swept away as floodwater overwhelmed that resort. The multistory Hampton at least offered height and electricity.