‘We haven’t forgotten about you’ – Eastern Ky. flood recovery continues, supported by UK providers

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 7, 2024) – It’s been two years. Two years since portions of Eastern Kentucky changed — both her landscape and her people. 

“The holes. That is the thing that jumps out at me still on my drives each day,” said Key Douthitt, M.D., medical director for UK HealthCare’s North Fork Valley Clinic in Hazard, Kentucky. “The places where I knew there was a big building, and it is not there anymore. It is the absence of what was.” 

The scars left behind by the 2022 flood are also not something those just passing through might notice at this point. But for those who call the area home, it is all still very fresh.

“Seeing those holes where you know people once lived or was someone’s once longstanding business … that is something that sort of hits you in the face every day,” said Douthitt, who makes his commute to work each day in Perry County through some of the hardest-hit areas. 

Douthitt says just because there are remnants of crumbled buildings and properties wiped away, that doesn’t mean progress is not happening.

“It is a grind. There’s a reason why they call it long-term recovery,” he said. “It’s because you must go in knowing in that we’re not going to turn this around in six months and get everybody fixed. You have to keep in mind that it is a long process — a marathon, not a sprint.”

As the housing chair for the Breathitt County Long Term Recovery committee, he knows firsthand about the grind. He also sees the slow but steady progress being made. “We are up to 11 houses that we’ve built for flood survivors through Mennonite Disaster Services,” said Douthitt. 

Eleven might not seem like much, but considering the challenges and work it takes on the front end just to find a place for a new home to be built, 11 homes and all those that will follow are critical in the big picture.

“Each new home that goes up, it helps people not lose hope,” said Douthitt. 

After all, this is far from a small task, with hundreds of homes destroyed or majorly damaged in Breathitt County alone. Plus, the 2022 flooding came on the heels of a FEMA-declared flooding disaster in 2021 that the county is also still recovering from.

“You sort of feel sometimes like you’re spinning your wheels trying to get things moving in the right direction,” said Douthitt. “But I’m hopeful.”

Douthitt continues to help flood survivors navigate the process of applying for and receiving relief assistance money from the government to get back into permanent housing. Some of the money can be used for reconstruction. That means someone’s home was destroyed, but they can rebuild on that same plot of land but at a different location on the land. Then other money can be used for what is considered new housing. New housing is for somebody who does not have any land out of the floodplain and must find new property to build on.

“The big issue is there is not a whole lot of land that is suitable,” said Douthitt. “The whole point is to get people out of the floodplain so they are safer from future floods and not exposed to that trauma again.”

In Eastern Kentucky, it’s common for generations of families to put their homes on the same stretch of land. Douthitt has found many people do not want to leave their property. He cites a common refrain: “I was born and raised here, and this is where I’m going to die.”

Douthitt and others on the housing committee watched people in their communities living in campers, mobile homes and even tents. They knew they had to get people out of those temporary homes. This led Douthitt to walking unoccupied areas to find strips of land suitable for building. After a few weeks of trekking the terrain, including a 200-acre property that took about eight hours, he realized he needed to work smarter, not harder. The family medicine doctor tapped into his resources as part of the UK family and connected with Doug Curl at UK’s Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS).

“I’m so fortunate that as a part of UK, I’ve had these resources. We have never felt alone,” said Douthitt.

With the expertise and resources through KGS, they were able to make headway and a quicker rate and use their time and energy more efficiently. Now roughly two years out from starting the process, some promise is being seen thanks to the mapping work. 

“The city did purchase a property we identified through the maps,” said Douthitt. “It is currently undergoing environmental review with the plan to build at least seven new houses on the property. There are some other properties we identified and referred that are being looked at by the county.” 

There are some properties also being referred to or that they plan to refer to Gov. Andy Beshear’s office to see what resources are available for engineering and development costs to make the land suitable for homes. Douthitt says these properties are promising sites for dozens of homes.

“Since this process uses government funds, they have to do an environmental review and check off other criteria. It is just a long, long process,” he said. “In the meantime, our neighbors are living in substandard conditions. Every week that passes, it’s just going really slow, because you want to get these people recovered. You want to get them back in a safe place that they can call home and that gets them out of the floodplain. It definitely isn’t happening as quick as we would like, but we’re seeing some progress, and I expect next year it will really explode.”

The community doctor is among several UK and UK HealthCare employees who have literally had their boots on the ground from the beginning. They jumped into action to help their neighbors in the immediate aftermath. They were part of the teams traveling by foot, ATVs and even horseback to get to survivors in those first days. They were joined by other UK HealthCare providers in the area, UK Retail Pharmacy members and others who knew the terrain. The horseback teams were led by members of the Breathitt Horseman’s Association, which is part of the Breathitt County Cooperative Extension. The teams provided tetanus shots, medications, water, first aid and connections with other needed resources.

Their work to help flood survivors has been tireless and continues today. At times they use their field of expertise to help and at other times their compassion as humans drives them to help however they can. The UK Center of Excellence in Rural Health (UK CERH) and their Kentucky Homeplace program have certainly stood in as a resource for basic needs and source of comfort for survivors throughout the impacted counties. Kentucky Homeplace is recognized at the national, state and local levels as a community health worker model that works. For more than three decades , Kentucky Homeplace has been linking rural Kentuckians with medical, social and environmental services they otherwise might have gone without.

“Our community health workers at Kentucky Homeplace continue to receive referrals related to the flooding, even at the two-year mark. Our team will continue reaching out to help those in need of access to services and other essentials for daily living,” said Fran Feltner, D.N.P., director of the UK CERH. “As far as recovery, it will take years to recover from the damage of the flood and the interruption of daily living for the people in eastern Kentucky. There is still work to be done.”

Kentucky Homeplace leaders spoke at a national conference earlier this year to share how their community health workers have helped, both in the early response and in long-term recovery efforts. They emphasized the important role community health workers can play during disaster response and recovery.

“We haven’t forgotten about you,” said Douthitt. “We are out here every day trying to move this process forward, from the governor on down to our individual case managers and volunteers throughout the community. Everyone is going to have a safe place to live. Everyone deserves that and we are not going to stop till we get there.”

Douthitt says he often refers back to an old saying: How do you walk around the world? One step at a time.

“We just have to keep putting those feet forward,” he said. “If we keep moving the right direction, eventually we will get everyone completely recovered and until then we will celebrate our small victories – keeping the hope alive.”