flood relief

Three drone pilots for a Hopkinsville-based company became a lifeline for people stranded in remote areas of North Carolina following Hurricane Helene.

A massive relief and cleanup effort is ongoing in East Tennessee following Hurricane Helene, and is now being bolstered by 500 soldiers and 15 helicopter crews from the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell.

As climate change increases the risk of flooding in eastern Kentucky, the state is building high ground communities to help residents, but one small mountain town has their own vision for high ground homes.

The state is planning to create seven new neighborhoods, most on top of old mining sites in eastern Kentucky. But can they make the homes affordable and attractive enough to draw locals in to settle them?

When floods hit eastern Kentucky in 2022, hundreds of families lost their homes. Flush with federal aid, the state is responding by becoming a housing developer on former strip mines.

Several advocacy groups for Appalachian communities are calling on Congress to reform some disaster relief and preparation programs. They say it’s needed as climate change causes more frequent extreme flooding.

FEMA is rolling out new benefits and processes for disaster victims in March. Many hope it will simplify a complex system that’s prevented some in eastern Kentucky from getting all the help they may be eligible to receive.

Kentucky’s Department for Local Government received plenty of criticism on its plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in federal flood recovery, but the agency submitted the plan to the feds with few changes.

Local governments use federal funds to buy hundreds of homes damaged during last year’s deadly floods.

A special examination of the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund by the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts’ office found that nearly $240,000 in inappropriate payments were made from the account in Fiscal Year 2023.