EKY flood assistance program making push for recovery

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Businesses and local economies in flood-ravaged areas of eastern Kentucky face a long road to recovery.

Many jobs were lost, and now organizations are working to rebuild the workforce, as well as these communities.

The damage stretched for miles, uprooting thousands of lives and washing away memories, jobs, and communities.

“It’s very sad, and it’s very heart-wrenching,” said Trish Adams of the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program.

The floods in eastern Kentucky left areas unrecognizable. Just over six months later, many neighborhoods and communities are still skeletons of what they used to be.

“Here in eastern Kentucky, we pick up our bootstraps, and we get to work,” said Adams. “We fix things. That’s what we’re doing right now.”

The Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program is working to not just get people back to work but build back the economies and communities that were devastated.

“Hopes of building back quicker, sooner, better and get these folks out of those trailers and mobile homes,” said Adams.

To do that, construction firms and contractors need as many hands as possible.

Thanks to a grant from the Department of Labor, EKCEP is working with contractors and businesses by connecting with people in skilled trades to repair and build homes.

The grant covers wages for these jobs. Jobs that people who lived in these areas have been eager to take after losing everything.

“We’ve seen several people that were impacted by the flood that are doing the flood recovery work,” said Adams. “That has been rewarding as well.”

Rewarding to help already 130 people find work, many in the communities they love, and bringing them back to what they were.

EKCEP is also conducting a survey to better determine the impacts on businesses and the workforce. This will help organizations and government officials figure out where to target resources and develop long-term strategies.

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