Author: Seth Borenstein
Flooding continues in Floyd County, and the federal government continues to come to the rescue.
In July 2022, flooding occurred in eastern Kentucky counties, killing at least 40 people and damaging 300 homes. This is the 13th time in 12 years that the rural county has been declared a federal disaster. The damage caused by these disasters is so great that local governments believe they cannot bear the full cost, so governors ask the president to declare a disaster to free up federal funds.
“After the flood, I had 500 homeless people looking at me, 'Guess what are we going to do?'” recalled Judge Robbie Williams, administrator of the county with a population of just over 35,000. “It's overwhelming and it's only a matter of time before it happens again.”
It did. In 2023, Floyd County was again declared a disaster for the 14th time since 2011. Since 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has declared 15 disasters in neighboring Johnson County.
When it comes to extreme weather and other so-called natural disasters, people often focus on coasts with frequent hurricanes or earthquakes and say that's where the danger lies. But that's not the highest concentration of federally declared disasters, according to an atlas of 713 FEMA-declared disasters created by Rebuild by Design and New York University. While most people in a disaster think of the federal government providing direct financial assistance to individual victims to cover the loss of homes and businesses, this Atlas focuses on the $60 billion provided to governments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assistance.
Eight of the nine counties with the most federal disaster declarations since 2011 (more than a dozen each) are in Kentucky, including one in Vermont. Over the past 13 years, these counties have experienced disasters four to five times the national average.
“California and Louisiana, I would say even now Texas, Florida, when you hear about these huge storms, they're definitely sucking up all the oxygen,” said Atlas creator Amy Che said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild By Design, a nonprofit organization focused on disaster prevention. “But what you don't hear is these storms happen all the time, and for places like Vermont, it's become very common.” Chester also mentioned Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi , Iowa and Alaska are hot spots.
“We want to show that climate change is here,” Chester said of the data from 2011 to 2023, which does not include heat waves, droughts or the coronavirus pandemic. “Communities across the board are suffering.”
Before analyzing the data, Chester said she believed Vermont would become a safe haven from climate change. Even cooler. inland. Instead, it is a disaster hotspot.
“This is too bad,” Chester said. “Things like this keep happening to them.”
Days later, she said Vermont was experiencing flooding again, this time caused by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, flooding is the most common disaster in the United States. Since 2011, FEMA has provided more than $41 billion in post-hurricane assistance, the most of any disaster type.
“The data tells us that the frequency and severity of disasters are increasing at the local and state level, with rural, suburban and urban areas being affected nationwide,” said Susan Carter, co-director of the university’s Institute for Disaster Vulnerability and Resilience. (Susan Cutter) South Carolina said in an email. She was not involved in Chester's study. “More measures need to be taken to build resilience to reduce its impact on people.”
The largest U.S. county without a federal disaster declaration since 2011 is Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where Charlotte is located.
“We're lucky,” said Charlotte Emergency Management Director Robert Graham, who attributed the lack of a federal disaster to good luck, good government and a good location.
“We're somewhat protected by the coast,” Graham said of the inland counties. “We don't have all the influence of the mountains. Charlotte seems to be in a bit of a sweet spot.
Graham said loose reserve funds and planning keep the city from having to seek financial assistance from the federal government after disasters like the 2019 floods. But he said he knew the city's luck would run out sooner or later.
Luck has long since abandoned eastern Kentucky.
In Floyd County, geography and government regulations make it difficult, Williams said. People in this mountainous county live in old coal camps in narrow valley floors, he said. When it rains, the increasingly shallow creeks overflow.
“We're seeing flooding at record levels,” Williams said. “It's only going to get worse.”
Williams said environmental regulations do not allow local officials to dredge creeks, which continue to accumulate from silt flowing down the mountains from development. He said some creeks decades ago were 20 feet deep but are now shallow enough to be walked across.
The problem is the rain has nowhere to go,” Williams said.
National Weather Service data shows Floyd County now averages more than 50 inches of annual rainfall, compared with 42 to 43 inches in the mid-1980s. Warmer air holds more moisture, and studies and statistics show that not only does rainfall increase in the eastern United States, but the downpours are more intense, leading to flooding.
Since 2011, Floyd County government has received more than $35 million in FEMA disaster assistance.
Five counties, three of them in New York, received more than $1 billion in FEMA aid, including New York County in Manhattan, which received $8.9 billion, almost all due to Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The top five counties have all been hit by one or more hurricanes.
Chester's group decided to look at congressional districts and how they compare in a disaster, especially with the House nearly evenly split.
Nearly 60 counties have experienced at least 10 federally declared disasters since 2011, and nearly 70% of members of Congress are Republicans. About 280 counties have experienced no disasters during this period, 87% of which are represented by Democrats, according to New York University.
Chester noted that Republicans have not talked about climate change on the campaign trail, but said, “Research shows that extreme weather is not a partisan issue.”
What’s more important is how state and local policies create or minimize the risk of future disasters, said Samantha Montano, an emergency management professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. In Floyd County, the government is using Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to buy the homes of 150 residents to keep them out of harm's way, but some don't want to leave, Williams said.
“Until we get these homes out of the flood waters … we're still going to have these problems,” Williams said.
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Data journalist Mary Katherine Wildeman contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.
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Follow Seth Borenstein on X: @borenbears
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