'East Kentucky Flood' tells the story of a deadly disaster, a courageous and heartfelt recovery, and an uncertain future

Rockhouse Creek, a major tributary of the North Fork of the Kentucky River, flooded Isom and its supermarket.

The record flash floods in southeastern Kentucky last summer killed 45 people and worsened a regional housing shortage. More than six months later, hundreds of people are still staying in campers or substandard housing, Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Some people in the region worry that it will become depopulated, but others see the flood as an opportunity to build back better. They're the stars of a half-hour documentary, "East Kentucky Flood," produced by the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, one of the flooded towns.

Letcher County, Kentucky (Wikipedia)

Like all well-told stories, this one is in three parts: Stories of the flood and its close calls, the courageous and heartfelt response, and the ongoing recovery and prospects for the future. And it focuses on one Appalachian county, Letcher, which has the headwaters of three rivers. The villain in this story, funded by the Flora Family Foundation, is the North Fork of the Kentucky River.

A man recalls the waters rising around him: “It was everything I could do to keep my feet on the ground.” Another tells of a woman in her late 70s who uses a walker but hung on to the roof of her front porch for five hours awaiting rescue. Whitesburg firefighter Charles “Red” Colwell found a woman neck-deep in water and couldn’t get her into a kayak: “I just found some adrenalin and I just was able to put her in that kayak. I said, ‘We have to go. We have to go now. I cannot swim.’”

Much help came from “the hillbilly refugees, the people who have moved out of here,” recalled Gwen Johnson of the Hemphill Community Center. “They knew we weren’t gonna get any help from anybody else,” and started making contact. “When the roads opened up, they rolled in here.” She said three “drunk angels” arrived with a load of meat and “stayed with us three days, and I don’t think they drew a sober breath while they was here, and they just kept on a-cookin’.” 

But much help has also come from local residents, including fellow victims. Huffman said, “I noticed that the ones who lost so much have been trying to help everybody else.”

Appalshop filmmaker Willa Johnson recalled, “I didn’t know the people who were showing up to help me – or it was people I never expected show up to help me. People who have very openly disagreed with me on politics – it’s become a line in the sand for us, and we just can’t talk – were showing up.”

Photographer Malcolm Wilson of Blackey said he made 2,500 images of the flood, “some of the hardest photographs I’ve ever made in my life. . . . Some things I didn’t photograph, that I saw; I just couldn’t bring myself to do it . . .  The other thing that really blew me away was the Isom IGA.”

Simon and Gwen Christion in their Isom IGA, being rebuilt (Images from documentary)

The rural supermarket's owner, 67-year-old Gwen Christon, who had spent 50 years in it, told the filmmakers, “For a week, I actually walked around in shock, wondering what I was going to do.” But her tragic story brought outside help, and a determination to reopen, with the help of her son, Simon, who decided two years ago to follow in her footsteps. She said she worked 50 years to buy the store and pay the mortgage, and he said “I’m next in line to work another 50 years and get it paid up.” She said, “We plan on opening April 1, 2023. This is our home. This is our people, and we have to stick together. . . . I think we can come back stronger. I think we can come back more together.”

Angie Hatton hopes that's true. The former state representative, defeated for re-election due to gerrymandering fostered by long-term population loss, said tearfully, “I just don’t want people to move away. The people who’ve stayed have been so brave to try and stay, you know . . . We can do a lot with a little here; we always have been able to. And for those who are moving away, I get it, you know, I understand, but I just hope we can find a way to build housing up off of the creeks, flood-proof our bridges and use this disaster was, instead of the end of us, as a catalyst for a new beginning for everything that makes it hard to live in Eastern Kentucky.”

Coal companies own most of the high ground. Educator Jeff Hawkins mentions coal without saying the word: “Part of the struggle has been that we have been so closely connected to a single industry; it has really driven our economic base and our personality and who we are for a century.”

Wes Addington of Appalachian Citizens Law Center said as he was surrounded by relatives’ homes: “It’s really difficult to figure out, well, how do you move away, or how do you leave the place? And I haven’t mentioned, it’s like, a beautiful part of the country. It’s a really pretty place to live.”

But how does it build back better? “Frankly, it's gonna require a lot of federal money – and interest in, you know, supporting a region that’s really supported a lot of the rest of the country’s growth over the past 100 years," Addington said. "That’s what I hope happens. I think it’s really uncertain.”

WEKU-FM has concluded its six-part series "Rise" about the flood and recovery. The opening narrative for the closing episode: "While still adjusting to such heavy loss and amid much uncertainty, Eastern Kentuckians are giving careful consideration to the future. In addition to addressing the immediate need for housing on higher ground, that future includes preparing for the possibility of more frequent extreme weather. Is this a turning point? Or just another turn on the curvy road ahead? Residents demonstrate the most important key to a strong community is knowing how to show up for your neighbors."