Source: Politics<\/p>\n
JACKSON, Ky. \u2014 Evelyn Smith lost everything in the floods that devastated eastern Kentucky, saving only her grandson\u2019s muddy tricycle. But she\u2019s not planning to leave the mountains that have been her home for 50 years.<\/p>\n
Like many families in this dense, forested region of hills, deep valleys and meandering streams, Smith\u2019s roots run deep. Her family has lived in Knott County for five generations. They\u2019ve built connections with people that have sustained them, even as an area long mired in poverty has hemorrhaged more jobs with the collapse of the coal industry.<\/p>\n
After fast-rising floodwaters<\/a> from nearby Troublesome Creek swamped her rental trailer, Smith moved in with her mother. At age 50 she is disabled, suffering from a chronic breathing disorder, and knows she won\u2019t be going back to where she lived; her landlord told her he won\u2019t put trailers back in the same spot. Smith, who didn\u2019t have insurance, doesn\u2019t know what her next move will be.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve cried until I really can\u2019t cry no more,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just in shock. I don\u2019t really know what to do now.\u201d<\/p>\n For many people who lost their homes, connections with family and neighbors will only grow in importance in the aftermath of the floods, which wiped out homes and businesses and engulfed small towns. Still, in a part of the state that includes seven of the 100 poorest counties in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they may not be enough for people already living on the margins.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are poor in east Kentucky are really some of the most disadvantaged people in our entire country,\u201d said Evan Smith, an attorney with the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund, which provides free legal services for low-income and vulnerable people. \u201cAnd for those who have now lost vehicles, homes, loved ones, it\u2019s hard for me to see how they bounce back from this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, people will,\u201d Smith added. \u201cPeople are more resilient than we can imagine at times. But without some type of state and national help, I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n He thinks some people who can afford to leave will do so, with younger people \u2014 less likely than their elders to try to rebuild where they are \u2014 more likely to look for jobs elsewhere.<\/p>\n Coal once dominated the economy of this corner of the Appalachian Mountains, offering the best-paying jobs in a place that had difficulty sustaining other kinds of work, but production has plunged by some 90% since the heyday of 1990, according to a state report<\/a>. And as production declined, the jobs went away.<\/p>\n The record floods<\/a> \u201ccouldn\u2019t have come at a worse time,\u201d said Doug Holliday, a 73-year-old attorney in Hazard, Kentucky, who represents miners with black lung disease and other health problems.<\/p>\n \u201dThe coal business has been petering out and a lot of people have left,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cThe people who are left live paycheck-to-paycheck or on Social Security, and most of them live in mobile homes on the very edge of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Holliday thinks an old friend died in one of those mobile homes, which was swept away by floodwaters and hasn\u2019t been seen since. He isn\u2019t the only one trying to account for people in what Gov. Andy Beshear called \u201cone of the worst, most devastating flooding events\u201d in Kentucky\u2019s history.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a chance the legacy of the coal industry, diminished though it is, made the flooding worse. The hardest hit areas of eastern Kentucky received between 8 and 10 1\/2 inches (20-27 centimeters) of rain over 48 hours, and the degradation of the land wrought by coal mining might have altered the landscape enough to help push rivers and creeks to crest at record levels.<\/p>\n \u201cDecades upon decades of strip mining and mountaintop-removal mining leaves the land unable to help absorb some of that runoff during periods of high rainfall,\u201d said Emily Satterwhite, director of Appalachian Studies at Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n The North Fork of the Kentucky River reached 20.9 feet (6.4 meters) in Whitesburg \u2014 more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) over the previous record \u2014 and crested at a record 43.5 feet (13.25 meters) in Jackson, said National Weather Service meteorologist Brandon Bonds.<\/p>\n Melinda Hurd, 27, was forced from her home in Martin, Kentucky, on Thursday afternoon when the Big Sandy River rose to her front steps \u2014 and then kept coming.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as I stepped off my steps it was waist high,\u201d she said. She is staying with two of her dogs at Jenny Wiley State Park in Prestonsburg, about 20 minutes from her home.<\/p>\n Hurd\u2019s neighbors weren\u2019t as lucky; some were stuck on their roofs, waiting to be rescued.<\/p>\n \u201cI know our whole basement is destroyed,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I feel very, very lucky. I don\u2019t think it will be a total loss.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurd works a cash job caring for an elderly woman, meaning she has no insurance or benefits.<\/p>\n Hurd\u2019s home also flooded in 2009 on Mother\u2019s Day, nearly destroying everything inside. She received financial help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency then, and will likely need more help this time around.<\/p>\n At a briefing with Beshear, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said more help is on the way. And the governor opened an online portal for donations<\/a> to flood victims.<\/p>\n Satterwhite said many residents will want to remain, kept in place by attachments to extended families and support networks that sustain them through good times and bad.<\/p>\n Smith, the woman who salvaged her 2-year-old grandson\u2019s trike, said fast-rising water forced her from her trailer around 1:30 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything in it has got mud all over it,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s probably 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 centimeters) of mud in the rooms. The walls are all water-logged all the way up.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite all that, she\u2019s not leaving Knott County. She doesn\u2019t think she ever could.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the mountains,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the land, it\u2019s the people that connect together to make it a home.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n