Last week, heavy rain caused devastating floods across eastern Kentucky. Stark photographs show communities buried under muddy water, with only trees and hills managing to escape. As the state braces for further storms, Governor Andy Beshear warns that the “next couple days are going to be hard.”
“We’ve got rain and maybe even a lot of rain that’s going to hit the same areas. Please pray for the people in these areas. And if you are in the areas that are going to get hit by rain, make sure you stay safe. Make sure you have a place that is higher ground. Go to a shelter. Just please, please be safe,” Beshear said in a video on his YouTube channel.
Currently, some sources place the flood’s death toll at 30. Many more remain missing. While workers continue searching for missing people, standing water and devastated infrastructure complicate rescue missions. Even after rescue, many local residents could face further strife.
“A lot of these places have never flooded. So if they’ve never flooded, these people will not have flood insurance,” Donald Mobelini, mayor of Hazard, Kentucky, told CNN. “If they lose their home, it’s total loss. There’s not going to be an insurance check coming to help that.”
There are ways to help struggling Kentuckians, however. Donations to the Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund will directly help locals affected by flooding. Individual fundraising campaigns can also be found on this GoFundMe hub page. An eastern Kentucky mutual aid group, eKY Mutual Aid, also established a flood relief fund that raised and distributed money to affected communities.
As eKy mutual aid wrote on Twitter, “the damages to our hills and hollers will take years to mend. and a whole lot of hands at work. we have been stepping up, spreading the word, loading up trucks and throwing in donations from all across the state/nation. it’s amazing. my heart aches.”