Two Years after the EKY Flooding
Gov. Beshear at a two-year flood anniversary event at the Skyview site.
Two years after the historic flooding in Eastern Kentucky, Fahe Members and and our Housing Can’t Wait coalition partners have shared their perspectives on the disaster recovery with several media outlets. We encourage readers to access the original reporting via the links.
On July 25 Lexington Herald-Leader’s Linda Blackford published an opinion piece about the “slow but steady progress” that has been made since July of 2022.
Ms. Blackford reports that the floods on July 28, 2022, killed 45 people, predominantly in the Breathitt, Knott, Perry, and Letcher counties of Eastern Kentucky, and damaged or destroyed almost 10,000 homes.
“As each survivor’s story is different, so is the resolution to their problems, each one a complicated patchwork quilt of people’s housing needs, finding land, finding financing to build and financing for renting or buying,” writes Ms. Blackford.
Fahe leads Housing Can’t Wait along with Members such as Housing Development Alliance and others to rebuild and rehabilitate homes affected by the flooding.
In June it was announced that Fahe has partnered with Team Kentucky to help Kentuckians navigate the applications process for homeownership.
“We can no longer wait for opportunities to be handed to us,” said Jacob Wolfe, Fahe’s director of disaster resilience. “We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we’re being proactive.”
Read more.
On July 26, Kentucky Educational Television (KET) aired an episode that at 12:27 includes a recap of the disaster and covers how the need for affordable housing has come to the forefront as part of the recovery.
“The flood was probably the best worst thing that ever happened to this community in the way of housing. It’s sad what’s happened, but it’s opened a lot of doors of opportunities to do things differently in the years ahead of us,” said Executive Director for Fahe Member HOMES, Inc. Seth Long.
Reporter Clayton Dalton says average household incomes in Appalachia are half the national average, making it more difficult for people to rent or buy homes.
Fahe CEO Jim King explains, “We don’t have enough units. Not just on the home ownership side but then that affects the cost of renting. And so, we are just seeing a lot of inflated prices and a lot of high rent that already people couldn’t afford.”
Building homes on high ground can protect people from natural disasters.
“Governor Beshear and his team have been working on this idea of high ground sites,” continued Mr. King. “…this was a historic type of catastrophe. We’re expecting to see a lot of the site work done on the high ground sites. There’s enough to reach probably 600 lots give or take. And I know the Governor and his folks are looking at more potential sites as well.”
Watch the episode in full here.
Additionally, WYMT Mountain News reported good news on July 26 regarding an award of $6 Million to the city of Jackson to build homes for flood survivors.
Reporters Amelia Lee and Drake Foley write that the city is partnering with Fahe Member Housing Development Alliance to build these new homes.
See the story here.