These Kentuckians faced flooding, landslides

NEON, Ky. — During last year’s historic flash flooding in eastern Kentucky, residents faced swift water and landslides.

In the hollers of eastern Kentucky, your front door faces the water and your back is to the mountain. 

Terry Sturgill has been looking over his shoulder his entire life, but a year ago he was hit from both sides.

Sturgill knows Letcher County well.

“Very local. Been here all my life,” Sturgill told Spectrum News 1. 

A torrential rain came on July 27, 2022, and it didn’t stop.

“And it was rock and water coming so loud and so fierce that you could see it and hear it,” Sturgill recalled.

Rain water poured down the coal mountain behind Sturgill’s home, pushing everything out of its way. While other homes were being swamped or swept away, Sturgill worried a landslide would hit him before the swollen creek even could.

“It was throwing rocks at me faster than I could catch them,” the homeowner said.

“This was a lake. I’ve got all kinds of pictures if you need to see them,” Sturgill said of his front yard, which faces a small creek. By the morning of July 28, all of Sturgill’s high ground was gone. The creek that runs 40 yards from his home rose 15 feet in a few short hours. Downtown Neon is half a mile downstream.

“I’d actually already filed to run before the flood and everybody was like, ‘You still want to be mayor?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, somebody’s got to do it.’ I’m just a go getter. I love a challenge,” Neon Mayor Ricky Burke told Spectrum News 1.

Burke indeed inherited a challenge. The new mayor and full-time mechanic was also born and raised in Letcher County. In fact, Burke attended the high school when neighbor Terry Sturgill was a principal there. But not only that, Sturgill once held the title of ‘Neon Mayor’ too.

Some storefronts in Neon have rebuilt while others still show the waterline on the untouched glass. There is noticeable progress, but other buildings are frozen in time.

“They are not just ready to start back up yet, but it’s in the making. They’ll be back,” Burke said reassuringly.

Nearly a year since the flood and Burke is meeting with state leaders and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, hoping to get help to repair parts of the city’s sewer water treatment system.

“It rained so hard and so fast the water just didn’t have anywhere to go,” Burke said. “Oh, it was it was devastating. I mean, we’ve had floods before, but, you know, never nothing like this. And I really hope we don’t ever see something like it again.”

Terry Sturgill’s home was damaged, and he soon discovered an additional problem; a severe lack of contractors able to help eastern Kentucky rebuild.

“There are no workers. There were no carpenters, no plumbers. There’s no electricians. There’s no painters. You fight for one,” Sturgill said.

And many in the hollers are still fighting and evermore skeptical of Mother Nature.