Laura Humphrey walks a wheelbarrow to a pile of debris while volunteering to clean up in Perry County near Hazard on Aug. 6, 2022. Thousands of Eastern Kentucky residents lost their homes ater devastating rain storms flooded the area. (Photo by Michael Swensen/Getty Images)
HAZARD — How does one of the nation’s poorest rural regions recover from the most disastrous flooding some of its communities have ever seen?
“Neighbors, heroes and leaders.”
That answer was the three-legged theme sounded repeatedly by Peter Hille, chair of the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation, at its annual conference in Hazard Thursday and Friday — exactly nine months after the flash floods left many in Southeastern Kentucky wondering about their region’s future.
The 35th annual East Kentucky Leadership Conference made clear that the disaster had created a greater sense of community among neighbors, some of whom responded by becoming heroes and leaders. Several were spotlighted in the annual East Kentucky Leadership Awards:
For each plaque handed out Thursday night, 10 to 20 more people or organizations deserve the same recognition, McReynolds told the crowd at Hazard Community and Technical College.
Roll, CEO of the foundation, said in accepting its award, “We’re here for you. We are you, you are us. That’s what community is.”
The foundation and other philanthropies made major differences in the recovery, said Lynn Knight, an economic development consultant in Washington and New Orleans who has done much post-disaster work and attended the conference.
Knight also told the Institute for Rural Journalism that the region is fortunate to have several community development finance institutions, such as Hille’s Mountain Associationand the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp., which can play a role in financing the recovery. The combination of CDFIs and philanthropy make the region unique, she said.
The disaster has helped some local governments and officials overcome political and geographic rivalries that have often impeded progress in the region.
“The biggest success we’ve had is tearing down the walls” between local governments, said Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander, quoting Hazard Mayor Donald “Happy” Mobelini as saying that “If something’s good for the city, it’s good for the county, and if something’s good for the county, it’s good for the city.”
Alexander said Friday morning that should also apply to competition between counties for jobs. “There’s nothing wrong with somebody living in Perry County and working in Knott County,” he said. “So let’s look at Appalachia as a whole. Let’s tear those barriers down.”
Much of the conference was devoted to the experiences, opinions and hopes of high-school students in the region, which will be the topic of future reports from the Institute for Rural Journalism.
The reporting is being done by Ivy Brashear in her role as the Institute’s first David Hawpe Fellow in Appalachian Reporting, named for the late Louisville Courier Journal editor who was born in Pike County and was the newspaper’s East Kentucky Bureau chief in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The fellowship is for students at the University of Kentucky, Hawpe’s alma mater. Brashear, a native of Perry County, is a Ph.D. student in the UK College of Communication and Information. If you have story ideas for her, you may email her here.
This story is republished from The Rural Blog, published by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.
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