Over a week has passed since Eastern Kentucky communities were affected by heavy flooding, resulting in power outages, road closures and the near-destruction of some communities.
On Sunday, Feb. 16, community members across Hazard, Kentucky assisted one another in beginning the cleanup process of the homes and businesses.
Deborah Lewis said she watched as the first floor of her business flooded with almost five feet of water.
“We had cameras, so I could watch it happen in real time, and I did,” Lewis said. “It’s hard to see furniture floating around what was your office and knowing that everything was just gone.”
Lewis said she had owned the building for 15 years and was now facing roughly over $100,000 worth of damage. Although Lewis said she had flood coverage to pay for the cost of destroyed furniture, she would still have to pay for all of the structural building costs out of pocket.
“We lost probably everything downstairs, the furniture, the bulk of our files. . . I’m pretty devastated,” Lewis said.
To save money, Lewis said she, along with the help of family friends and volunteers, were demolishing the first floor themselves before hiring a contractor to come in and rebuild downstairs.
However, Lewis said she did not know how she was going to replace her damaged files yet.
“Our server luckily was up here (second floor), so that was great,” Lewis said. “But there’s some things that weren’t scanned in or weren’t on the cloud, so we’re gonna have to try to recreate probably about 80 files.”
Lewis plans on getting her business “up and running” as soon as possible.
“We’re gonna try to work from up here (the second floor),” Lewis said. “We’ve had several people offer us office space too, if we can’t make it work.”
Lewis said she was grateful to still have internet and phone access and looks forward to the future.
“There are people who have lost everything, their homes and everything, so we’re fortunate,” Lewis said. “We can rebuild this. We can get it done. It’ll just take time.”
According to Perry County Emergency Management Director Jerry Stacy, the recent flood has been devastating for the community of Hazard.
“It’s the biggest flood we’ve had on the river since 1984, so over 40 years,” Stacy said. “It’s because of that there’s just a lot more homes impacted.”
Although the low temperatures and snow in the past week have made it hard for groups to assist in cleanup, Stacy said, those working on flood relief in Hazard still found ways to help the hundreds of people with damaged homes.
“That’s what we’re doing through this time, is organizing and getting volunteer groups ready to go,” Stacy said. “We’re ready to respond just as the temperatures warm up.”
Red Cross shelters have been set up for those who have no place to stay, and travel trailers have been made available as well, giving people a temporary solution, Stacy said.
“There’s been a lot of people here within this event that have lost everything they had,” Stacy said.
However, Stacy said the damage done to Hazard would not be permanent.
“This ain’t gonna be a quick fix, but the one thing I’m sure about here is that our people are resilient,” Stacy said. “We will stand up and we will pull together and we’ll help each other and we’ll get through this. That much I’m sure about.”
Hazard High School teacher and head football coach Matthew Chandler said he brought out his football players to assist in the cleanup of homes and buildings starting the Monday following the flood on Feb. 17.
Chandler said he and his team reached out to community members through Facebook to see who needed help, where they then made a schedule to organize home and business cleanups.
“Since Sunday, we’ve helped 23 homes and businesses clean out and do different things that they need,” Chandler said. “I’ll get a text in the middle of the day that’ll be like, ‘so and so needs help, can you send bodies?’ and we try to get as many of those as we can.”
There was no school for Hazard High School the entire week following the flooding, according to Hazard Independent Schools.
Chandler said he used the time off to get as many people to help assist in flood relief as possible.
“It was a good opportunity for us to help our neighbors when they needed it, and a lot of people needed it,” Chandler said.
Chandler said the cleanup served as a way for the football team to give thanks to the community for their support.
“It’s nice to be able to give back in that way,” Chandler said. “But also, if we’re gonna live here and this is gonna be where we make our home. . .we want them (the players) to continue to make this a place that is a great community to live in.”
Chandler said he and his players will continue their flood relief efforts.
“As long as we’re able to get out and do it, we’ll do it. And as long as we’re needed, we’ll get out and do it,” Chandler said. “Because. . . it’ll be a monthslong process to get everything back to normal.”
Chandler said the community response after the flooding was automatic.
“Nobody really communicated anything early on, you just went to Main Street and you were like, ‘OK, what do we do?’” Chandler said. Everybody was immediately there because they knew that’s what you do for your neighbors and that’s what you do for your community.”
There were also relief efforts related to providing food support for the city’s community and volunteers.
President of the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association, Arch Sebastian, said his organization partnered with the Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) of the University of Kentucky to grill food at one of Hazard’s relief centers.
According to Sebastian, unlike the unexpected flash floods that nearly destroyed Eastern Kentucky communities in 2022, the Hazard community expected this flood a few days in advance.
Sebastian said there was one big difference between the flood that occurred in 2022 and this flood: the magnitude.
“This flood was so much of a wider scale,” Sebastian said. “But people need help, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Sebastian said it was important for groups in Eastern Kentucky to provide support when it came to flood relief efforts.
“As organizations, we’ve gotta be willing to help the communities, and that’s what both of our organizations do,” Sebastian said.
Regardless of the damage caused, Sebastian said, the people of Hazard are resilient.
“They withstood 2022; they’ll withstand 2025,” Sebastian said. All flood survivors in Kentucky with immediate, non-life-threatening needs such as unreliable power or electricity, limited drinking water, or those with medical needs or disabilities are being asked to fill out a Kentucky Rapid Needs Assessment or call (502) 607-6665.
