Kentucky residents, counties will get help under Biden flooding disaster declaration
Additional help is on the way for hundreds of Kentucky residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by widespread flooding in March.
President Joe Biden approved a federal disaster declaration that includes individual assistance for people in nine counties whose homes were flooded, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Friday evening.
The counties are Breathitt, Clay, Lee, Estill, Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin, Martin and Powell.
The declaration means people displaced from their homes, or whose homes were damaged, can apply for money for a range of needs, including home repairs or construction, the cost of temporary housing and replacement of furniture, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
FEMA approved that assistance for more than 2,300 homes in the nine counties, Beshear said in a news release.
Those were the counties that state and local officials determined had the greatest concentration of flood damage, so they asked FEMA to assess there first.
However, Beshear said he will ask FEMA to assess the potential for that type of assistance for people in other counties.
“So many families and communities were hurt by this historic flooding, and we thank President Biden for working so quickly to grant this relief,” Beshear, a Democrat, said in the release.
Republican U.S. Reps. Hal Rogers, of Somerset, and Andy Barr, of Lexington, also applauded the declaration and said they would work to add more counties in their districts.
FEMA said in a release that people and business owners can begin applying for assistance by registering at DisasterAssistance.gov or calling 800-621-3362 or 800-462-7585 TTY.
Individual assistance is a grant that doesn’t have to be repaid. The limit on it is $35,500, according to Kentucky Emergency Management.
The U.S. Small Business Administration will make a number of counties eligible for its disaster loan program, under which owners of rental properties can apply for low-interest loans to deal with flood damage.
Biden’s declaration also approved what is called public assistance for Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Cumberland, Elliott, Floyd, Franklin, Jackson, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Lawrence, Lee, Lincoln, Magoffin, Marion, Martin, Mason, Morgan, Ohio, Pike, Powell, Rockcastle and Wolfe counties.
Public assistance is federal money to help government agencies, non-profits such as electric cooperatives, and schools with costs from the flooding, such as repairing roads and waterlines, clearing landslides and removing debris.
FEMA was still validating damages when the state submitted its request for assistance April 7.
Officials in other counties later finished damage assessments. The state will ask FEMA to add more counties to the list eligible for public assistance.
The flooding that led to the declaration peaked the first week of March. It was some of the worst on record in several counties.
Rain started falling on Feb. 26 and didn’t let up until early March 1, pouring down an inch an hour at times in some counties, according to Beshear’s request for the disaster declaration.
The South Fork of the Kentucky River hit a new record flood level at Booneville in Owsley County, and the main river set a record at Ravenna in Estill County.
There also was significant flooding along the Red, Licking and Green rivers, according to the application.
Rescuers plucked a woman from the roof of her home in Estill County with a helicopter; in Johnson County, police, firefighters and other first responders evacuated 37 families from homes, according to the state’s letter to Biden and FEMA.
In Lee County, water was six feet deep or more in downtown Beattyville, inundating dozens of businesses, and rescuers used dump trucks to get people out of a flooded mobile-home park.
Of the 2,300 homes in nine counties where FEMA validated at least some impact from the high water, 622 had major damage or were destroyed, according to the state’s application.
The letter said there were four deaths attributed to the disaster, one each in Breathitt, Perry, Owen and Hart counties.
Beshear said counties have reported more than 1,200 cases of damage to infrastructure such as roads and bridges from the flooding, as well as costs for debris removal and emergency work.
The preliminary estimate on those damages and work is more than $72 million, according to Beshear’s office.
