‘Here We Go Again’: Kentucky Residents Face More Destruction and Anxiety From Storms

As unrelenting rain pelted Kentucky, and as the nearby river nearby continued to rise, the two sisters — and business partners — did what they could to protect the quilt shop they own in Hazard, a town of about 5,000 people in the eastern part of the state.

They cleared the drains in their parking lot, and cleared the floors of their store, Appalachian Quilt, before moving bolts of material from the lower shelves, to ones at least three feet up. They were sure that they had done enough.

But it was not nearly enough.

“I’ve never seen anything like it because it came in so fast and the water just kept rising and rising,” Sheridan Sparkman said on Monday, explaining that she and her sister, Sandy Hurt, had positioned themselves on a nearby overpass after the roads to the store became impassable. With their hearts beating fast, they watched the floodwaters travel closer and closer to their store — and then rise along its exterior.

Similar scenes of hope and anxiety played out across the region over the past few days, as residents braced themselves for damage from yet more severe weather in a part of the country that has been pummeled by it.

From tornadoes to mudslides and floods and more floods, Kentucky has endured an unlucky streak, stretching back too many uncomfortable years to count. Over the last four years, flooding in Eastern Kentucky has killed more than 50 people. In 2021, tornadoes on the western side of the state left 80 dead.

The flooding in eastern Kentucky in 2022 destroyed hundreds of homes, and many were swept away. Ms. Sparkman has another sister, who lost her house in that flood.

Throughout Kentucky, a clearer picture of the destruction caused by the storms had emerged by Monday: At least 11 people dead throughout the state, with the death toll expected to rise. Hundreds of people displaced from their homes, and thousands without power. More than 1,000 rescues with members of the National Guard activated from three states. At least 300 road closures of state and federal roads. Seven wastewater systems out of service, including one that was underwater. More than 17,000 homes without access to potable water.

And more grim news was likely, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said while addressing reporters on Monday, warning that a snowstorm was expected in the next few days that could dump as much as six inches. He urged Kentuckians to stay home and allow emergency boats, vehicles and workers to reach people in need.

“This is one of the most serious weather events that we’ve dealt with in at least a decade,” he said over the weekend.

Ms. Sparkman, who worked for many years as a nail technician, said all the people she knew in her part of the state — every single one — had been affected by the flooding in recent years. Maybe their businesses had been damaged. Or they had lost their homes. Or they had taken a financial hit because roads were closed and they could not get to work.

So many residents are still shellshocked by what happened in 2022 that the latest flood brought on high levels of anxiety, she said.

“Back in 2022, it was really, really bad,” Ms. Sparkman said. “We just can’t get a break here.”

In the town of Whitesburg, about 30 miles from Hazard, Mimi Pickering felt that kind of anxiety. As she watched the rainfall, she wondered if the floods would again swallow the bridge that leads to the historic Main Street or if a media and arts education center where she is a board member would be damaged, as it was a few years before.

“It just looked so much like the 2022 flood — it felt just like, ‘Here we go again, this is unbelievable,’” said Ms. Pickering, a filmmaker. “It’s been traumatic for people when it rains so heavily — it just adds to that PTSD.”

One thing different this time is that the flood hit during the winter, not the summer, as it did in 2022. Jeff Campbell, a high school teacher in Hazard, said he had four feet of water in his house in 2022, but this time it was spared. He spent his Monday helping a friend whose house had been flooded, bringing over supplies that people had donated to him for his own cleanup.

“These people are going to be really, really cold,” he said, adding that water and electric service has been spotty.

A winter weather advisory was expected to take effect in Kentucky starting Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service, which warned of dangerous driving conditions and potential black ice as temperatures drop into the teens and lower 20s.

This flood is different in other ways, too. Mr. Beshear said that no single, specific area had been decimated, as was the case in 2022. This time, he said, the havoc, while not as catastrophic, was more evenly spread. He also said that the state was better prepared this time because of its experiences with other disasters.

“We learn from every one, and we try to rebuild so that the next one and the next one we lose fewer people,” he said.

Larry McManamay, a retired painter in Pikeville, said that he had watched the water rise slowly in his basement, which held thousands of dollars worth of tools, furniture and personal items. He also worried about the risk of fire, because of the electrical outlets, now submerged, so he eventually evacuated to a nearby motel.

“It’s no good and there’s nothing we can do,” he said.

In Letcher County, about 40 miles southwest of Pikeville, Amanda Lucas, the owner of Crafty Momma Treasures in downtown Whitesburg, said that she had opened her shop in February 2023, in a building that had been flooded the previous year. But when she visited the store on Sunday, the water had risen to about waist level, and the basement area where she had kept her inventory had been destroyed.

“Everything was just starting to get normal, and now everything is chaotic again,” she said. “Just devastation everywhere.”

Ms. Lucas, 44, who also works as a respiratory therapist at Pikeville Medical Center, said that, while her house had not been damaged, many of her neighbors had not been so lucky. Many, in fact, had just begun to move back into homes after being flooded out in 2022.

“The rain, PTSD, so many people have it, just the sound of rain, and it was just awful,” she said. “I mean, your heart sinks for everybody who had to swim out and lost everything.”

Ms. Sparkman, the quilt shop owner, said she and her sister in Hazard were lucky that their homes were not damaged because they live on high ground. But when they returned to their store on Sunday, they saw that the water had risen above the three-foot mark. More than $100,000 of fabric was soaked and not salvageable, Ms. Sparkman said, though the sewing machines were high enough that they had remained dry.

She said she was encouraged, however, that more than a dozen people from the community — all strangers — had shown up to help rip out wet carpets, mop up and scrub shelves. That sort of support would make it hard to ever leave the area, she said, though it has been tempting to think about it amid the rapid-fire bouts of natural disasters.

“Besides, this bad weather is everywhere — it’s not just us, it’s Tennessee, West Virginia — and do you move to California, no way, they have fires,” she said. “There is no place left to go. These days, no place is safe.”

Rachel Nostrant contributed reporting.