PIKETON, Ohio (WSAZ) -- Watching your dreams drift away is usually a metaphor.

For one man, it was all too literal Tuesday when the heavy rains hit.

John Sparks has lived on a stretch of land by the Scioto River for 27 years.

"I've always said it's home,” he said. “That's where they'll probably bury me."

He's been flooded by the river before but never seen near the damage as what happened Tuesday.

Sparks' daughter Chasica Wireman was standing by her father's house around 3:40 Tuesday evening. She videoed the home and the embankment it was standing on being dragged into the river.

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to watch in my entire life," she said. "He's heartbroken, devastated. He loves this place more than any place on earth. We can't get him to move. We've tried.”

Sparks started building the house in 2002. He says he was just weeks away from moving in.

"It was his dream home,” Wireman said. “Now his dream is sunk."

He'd been staying in a small building while he worked on the home. That too was swept away.

Sparks was at work when the house was dragged down.

"I would have liked to have been there,” he said. “I built it. I'd like to see it go."

Sparks says he does plan to start building again near that same area.

He says this time he'll make sure he builds farther away from the river.

He says he'll be staying with family in the meantime.