For the past few days, residents in Kentucky have battled against floods. The disaster is an example of how they affected the area so much in the past few months.
The flooding unleashed destruction across the state, with authorities stating that at least 26 people died from the floods and that it may take weeks to figure out how much damage the floods caused. The floods hit the counties near the Appalachian Mountains the hardest with homes pulled from their foundations and bridges washed out.
Knott County was one such county with at least 14 people, four of whom were children, dying there. Thousands of people now don’t have any electricity. In Breathitt County, over 4 people died and about a dozen people missing with most of the county covered with water. The county was in the middle of trying to recover from its last flood.
Hargis Epperson, the county’s coroner, talked about a previous flood, “We had another flood, a record flood, not 12 months ago, and a lot of families had just started getting their lives back on track. Now it’s happened all over again, worse this time. Everybody’s lost everything, twice.”
Despite the situation, many people are trying to help. Helicopters and boats have saved over 1,400 people in Knott County. After a tornado decimated Bremen, Kentucky last year, the mayor of Hindman, a town that was about 300 miles away, decided to help out with cleaning up the town. After finding out that the flood hit Hindman hard, the mayor of Bremen planned trips with supplies to the town even though his town was still in the process of rebuilding. In a phone call, Mayor Allen Miller of Bremen told the mayor of Hindman, “You were here in December and helped us, now it’s time for me to return the favor.”
Dan Mosley, the judge-executive for Harlan County, decided to help out the communities in need. He stated that his community had minor flooding, so he went out and worked with the county Transportation Department to get dump trucks. These dump trucks would then be loaded with snowplows to clear debris and mud from roads in other communities. He described what he saw, “The pure catastrophic loss is hard to put into words. I’ve just never seen anything like this in my career or even my life.”
With support from the federal government and each other, the counties of Kentucky can survive the floods.
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/us/kentucky-flooding-natural-disasters.html
The flooding unleashed destruction across the state, with authorities stating that at least 26 people died from the floods and that it may take weeks to figure out how much damage the floods caused. The floods hit the counties near the Appalachian Mountains the hardest with homes pulled from their foundations and bridges washed out.
Knott County was one such county with at least 14 people, four of whom were children, dying there. Thousands of people now don’t have any electricity. In Breathitt County, over 4 people died and about a dozen people missing with most of the county covered with water. The county was in the middle of trying to recover from its last flood.
Hargis Epperson, the county’s coroner, talked about a previous flood, “We had another flood, a record flood, not 12 months ago, and a lot of families had just started getting their lives back on track. Now it’s happened all over again, worse this time. Everybody’s lost everything, twice.”
Despite the situation, many people are trying to help. Helicopters and boats have saved over 1,400 people in Knott County. After a tornado decimated Bremen, Kentucky last year, the mayor of Hindman, a town that was about 300 miles away, decided to help out with cleaning up the town. After finding out that the flood hit Hindman hard, the mayor of Bremen planned trips with supplies to the town even though his town was still in the process of rebuilding. In a phone call, Mayor Allen Miller of Bremen told the mayor of Hindman, “You were here in December and helped us, now it’s time for me to return the favor.”
Dan Mosley, the judge-executive for Harlan County, decided to help out the communities in need. He stated that his community had minor flooding, so he went out and worked with the county Transportation Department to get dump trucks. These dump trucks would then be loaded with snowplows to clear debris and mud from roads in other communities. He described what he saw, “The pure catastrophic loss is hard to put into words. I’ve just never seen anything like this in my career or even my life.”
With support from the federal government and each other, the counties of Kentucky can survive the floods.
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/us/kentucky-flooding-natural-disasters.html