As Kentucky Flood Recovery Continues, Southern Baptists Serve Survivors

Volunteers with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief have been cleaning out flood-damaged homes and buildings following the horrific flooding that rocked eastern Kentucky. Photo by Coy Webb

WHITESBURG, Ky. (BP) – The Southern Baptist response to the devastating flash floods in Kentucky the last week of July continues, and volunteers from 16 different Southern Baptist state conventions have been engaged in the clean-up and recovery process so far.

The late July floods claimed at least 37 lives, caused millions of dollars in damage and left multiple counties in a state of emergency. Send Relief’s crisis response director, Coy Webb, visited the region this week.

“This event will have a longer-term negative impact than the December tornadoes that affected Kentucky last year,” Webb said. “With the tornadoes, most people had insurance that were affected, and areas impacted were not areas with widespread chronic poverty issues.”

With the current disaster, much of the population did not have flood insurance, Webb said, and many people living in some of the affected counties subsist on some form of public assistance.

“One leader said that these counties could be set back to depression-level poverty,” Webb said.

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Source: Baptist Press