Appalachians Are Trapped in a Disastrous Cycle of Flooding and Rebuilding
1 min read
Summary
Floods in eastern Kentucky, and in other regions of Appalachia before that, have underscored the difficulty residents in the region face as they try to recover and rebuild in the face of repeated disasters.
Eastern Kentucky’s western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee were hit hard by flooding in September 2024, following wildfires that ravaged the region in 2022.
Floods in eastern Kentucky in 2021 and 2022 turned a housing crisis into a full-blown emergency, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed.
While the state has planned seven communities with space for 665 new homes, as of early 2025 only 14 houses had been completed.
In the meantime, many of the mobile home communities that were devastated by the 2022 floods have begun to refill, with residents having no other place to go.
This highlights the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems.
