While reading a breakdown of the dead in each county during a news conference Sunday, Beshear became visibly emotional when he reached the four children dead in Knott County, where 15 people were found dead. “It says ‘minors,’” the governor said, looking at the list. “It’s kids. The oldest is in second grade,” Beshear said. The floods — which swelled roads, destroyed bridges and washed away entire homes — displaced thousands of Kentuckians, according to the governor. It also destroyed vital electricity, water and road infrastructure, some of which has yet to be restored. There was a risk of flash flooding from Sunday night into Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. A slight chance for heavy rain is possible across the affected area on Monday and Tuesday. Conditions are expected to begin to improve on Monday, but the area could see a two-day total of up to two inches of rain. Some areas could see more. In Perry County, about 50 bridges are damaged and inaccessible, according to County Judge Executive Scott Alexander. “That means someone lives on the other side or a lot of families that live on the other side that we still can’t get road access to,” Alexander said. Kentucky State Police are still searching for missing residents in several counties and are asking families to notify law enforcement if a loved one is missing. Search and recovery efforts may face another hurdle as temperatures are expected to soar Tuesday and the rest of the week, putting crews, volunteers, evacuees and the area’s homeless population under pressure. As the climate crisis fuels more extreme and frequent weather events, several areas of the US are currently at risk of flooding, including parts of the desert Southwest, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Tucson, Arizona.
A region in desperate need of resources
Government officials are focusing immediately on providing food, water and shelter to people who have been forced to flee their homes. Power outages and storm damage left 22 water systems operating at limited capacity, according to a Sunday news release from the governor’s office. More than 60,000 water service connections are either without water or under a boil warning, it said. Nearly 10,000 customers in the eastern part of the state were still without power as of early Monday, according to PowerOutage.us. Officials overseeing recovery efforts say bottled water, cleaning supplies and relief fund donations are among the most needed resources as the region works toward short- and long-term recovery. FEMA provides tractor trailers filled with water to many counties. “A lot of these places have never flooded. So if they’ve never flooded, these people won’t have flood insurance,” Hazard, Kentucky Mayor Donald Mobellini told CNN on Saturday. “If they lose their home, it’s a total loss. There’s not going to be an insurance check to help with that. We need cash donations,” he said, referring to a relief fund set up by the state. Beshear established a Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund to pay for the funeral expenses of flood victims and to raise money for those affected by the damage. As of Sunday morning, the fund had received more than $1 million in donations, according to the governor. The federal government has approved relief funding for several counties. FEMA is also accepting individual requests for disaster assistance from renters and homeowners in Breathitt, Clay, Knott, Letcher and Perry counties, the governor said, noting he believes more counties will be added to the list as damage assessments continue.
Communities face irreparable damage
Although the recovery effort was still in the search and rescue phase over the weekend, Beshear said at a news conference Saturday that he believed the losses would be “in the tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.” “This is one of the most devastating, deadliest floods we’ve seen in our history,” Beshear told NBC Sunday. “It eliminated areas where people didn’t have as much to begin with.” And it wasn’t just personal possessions that were washed away by the flood waters. A building that housed archival film and other materials in Whitesburg was affected, with the water submerging an irreplaceable collection of historic films, videotapes and audio recordings that documented Appalachia. Appalachian filmmaker Mimi Pickering told CNN that the beloved media, arts and education center, Appalshop, had archival footage and films dating back to the 1940s, holding the stories and voices of the people of the area. Workers and volunteers scrambled to preserve as much material as they could. “We’re working as hard and as fast as we can to try to salvage all of this stuff… The full impact, I don’t think it’s completely hit me yet. I think I don’t really want to think about it,” Pickering said. He noted that the Smithsonian and other institutions have reached out offering help. The widespread loss Kentuckians are suffering will likely take a mental toll, Frances Everidge, a therapist and 44-year-old Hazard resident, told CNN. While her home was spared, she said some of her friends have had homes destroyed or lost their entire farms. “When you put your blood, sweat and tears into something and then watch it get torn apart before your eyes, there’s going to be a grieving process,” Everage said. “This community will rebuild and we’ll be fine, but the impact on mental health will be significant.” CNN’s Sara Smart, Andy Rose, Lauren Lee, Raja Razek, Mike Valerio, Mark Biello, Cole Higgins, Robert Shackelford, Chris Boyette, Aya Elamroussi, Dakine Andone, Caitlin Kaiser and Tom Sater contributed to this report.
