Eastern KY woman recalls ‘deja vu’ of 2022 floods amid another round of storm damage
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Eastern KY suffers massive flooding
Raging flood waters over the weekend, and severe cold weather, have claimed the lives of 14 people across Kentucky.
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A little more than two years ago, April Slone, of Hazard, purchased a pair of steel-toed boots for her boyfriend.
She noticed a pair in her size, too.
“We can match,” the now-31-year-old recalled laughing.
A few months later, in the summer of 2022, she was wearing the Herman-brand “Survivor” boots when her home was ravaged by floods.
She wore them for 12 hours that day. She was wearing them when she fled for higher ground, and when she was eventually rescued from a graveyard by a Red Cross helicopter.
The boots were waterlogged. Her boyfriend and sister had to help her remove them when the helicopter landed.
And on Saturday night, she was wearing them again, when her new home in Hazard was threatened by another round of heavy rainfall and flash flooding.
As storms pummeled the state late Friday and all day Saturday, all 120 Kentucky counties reported flooding. Each county received between 3 and 8 inches of rain.
Eastern Kentucky, including Hazard, was hit hard again, just two years after major flooding killed 45 people. As of Sunday afternoon, at least eight people had been reported dead from the weekend’s storms.
On Saturday night, as Slone watched the water creep up Main Street in Hazard and approach her home, she said she felt her PTSD creep up.
“All of a sudden it was deja vu from two years ago,” she said. “Some crazy things happened last night — but not as bad two years ago. But in some places, it was worse.”
Slone and others began walking around Main Street Saturday night to assess the water levels and make plans if it was necessary to evacuate. They took photos and shared memories of the 2022 floods.
“Our community is very blessed that we, as a community, are who we are, and know when to step in and help,” Slone said. “Being in a rural part of the world ... we know how to step up and help each other. By the grace of God, we have been conditioned that way.”
While she doesn’t know what the response, cleanup or recovery will look like for her community and others, she said residents had proven themselves resilient in the wake of disaster.
“We will make it through. We always do,” she said. “Pray for the loss of loved ones, and pray for people who are seeking shelter and a place to lay their heads down.”
Slone said some of the Hazard homes damaged in Saturday’s flood were built in the aftermath of the 2022 flood.
She and her family barricaded their home for a while on Saturday night, but the home came out mostly unscathed.
And her boots, for the most part, stayed dry.
This story was originally published February 16, 2025 at 4:12 PM.
