Episcopalians cleaning up again after floods hit parts of Kentucky, West Virginia
Students from the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, Kentucky, pass buckets of mud from a flooded basement to be tossed out as they help with recovery from a flood that devastated part of the city of Pikeville and surrounding areas. The Rev. Rob Musick, the school’s chaplain, helped organized the effort. Photo: Rob Musick
[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia are helping to clean up the damage and assess losses after flooding hit the region for the third time in four years. Heavy flooding also occurred in 2021 and 2022.
The Diocese of Lexington, which covers eastern Kentucky, has been the site of flooding before. Southeastern Kentucky experienced catastrophic flood waters in 2022, but flooding was higher in some places this year than in 2022, the Rev. Becca Kello, the diocese’s canon missioner, told Episcopal News Service.
“The floods rose a little bit slower this time, so people knew more what they needed to do,” she said, helping to account for significantly fewer deaths than the 40 who died in 2022.
Flooding also occurred in a different part of the diocese this year, Kello said, with Pike County among the hardest hit.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Feb. 18 announced that the death toll in that state from rain, subsequent flood waters, and then freezing temperatures and snow stands at 14 people. Three people died in West Virginia when a truck they were in was swept off the road and into a nearby river.
The Rev. Rob Musick is a chaplain at the University of Pikeville as well as priest-in-charge of St. James in nearby Prestonburg, Kentucky. He told ENS that while the downtown area of Pikeville was spared – thanks in large measure to a project that moved the river years ago – surrounding areas were devastated.
“Water in some areas was over the tops of buildings,” he said. “It’s a total loss for some communities.” One student, who lives about an hour away in West Virginia, had water up to the roof of her house. He noted that during his time at the university, the region experienced significant flooding in 2010, 2021, 2022 and again this year.
Flooding in Mingo County, West Virginia, across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River from Pikeville, Kentucky, occurred after heavy rain fell on already saturated ground. Photo: Jamie Weaver
With the university closed, he is leading students in cleaning out houses so people can begin to assess their losses and make plans to rebuild. Pike County is part of Kentucky Appalachia, which has suffered from poverty for generations, he said, so the option of rebuilding somewhere else isn’t available to them.
Those who lived in now-destroyed mobile homes often had no flood or renters’ insurance so have lost everything without any means to replace it, he said.
Luckily, Kello said, churches across the diocese appeared to be spared, although the priority for diocesan leaders has been checking on the safety of parishioners. Many people live in the valleys between Kentucky’s “hills and hollers,” she said, which puts them at greater risk as water rushes downhill.
The Diocese of West Virginia, which includes the entire state, has determined that all its churches were spared but still is awaiting word on the status of the Highland Educational Project, the Rev. Jordan Trumble, canon for communications and congregational development, told ENS.
The project has been an outreach ministry of the diocese for more than 70 years, she said, serving one of the poorest counties in the United States. It not only provides direct services to area residents but also hosts mission groups from across the country and is the site for a summer reading camp for children.
Bishop Matthew Cowden has reported that roads in McDowell County, where the project is located, all are washed out. The diocese is working on a plan to collect and deliver supplies when the roads are open, Trumble said.
In addition, several parishes are taking up their own collection of supplies for affected areas in McDowell County and surrounding areas. Some stores in that area have been flooded, and those that are open are quickly running out of supplies, she said.
Like eastern Kentucky, West Virginia is mountainous, with towns built at the foot of the hills. That means, Trumble said, that when rain falls and rivers rise, people always are at risk. And this winter has been an especially wet one, with January snow followed by recent rains, and then more snow.
The Ven. Josh Saxe, archdeacon for community resilience and disaster response ministries, is leading the diocese’s recovery efforts, Trumble said, adding that previous work in helping church communities develop resiliency in the face of natural disasters has paid off this week.
The diocese also has been working with Episcopal Relief & Development to help provide funds to affected areas, and it also is collecting money through its website. “We are continuing to assess needs and plan for long-term recovery in these areas,” Trumble said.
Lexington’s Kello said that residents of these areas understand what it’s like to live there, but life has become much harder with what she called mega-climate events occurring more often. “People are capable of navigating floods,” she said, “but not these kinds of floods.”
— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.
