Flood Resilience in Kentucky
Eastern Kentucky’s communities have endured repeated floods while working to rebuild homes, restore infrastructure, and strengthen local economies. Many homes, roads, and essential services sit along narrow streams and valleys, where rapidly rising water can isolate neighborhoods and leave lasting damage.
The floods of 2022 and 2025 have made affordable housing recovery a central challenge for Eastern Kentucky. Local housing organizations are repairing damaged homes and developing new neighborhoods on higher ground, but the region’s steep terrain limits suitable building sites outside floodplains. Recovery requires both safer places to build and affordable options for families who need to repair, rebuild, or relocate.
Recovery also extends to the small businesses, farms, and community organizations that serve Eastern Kentucky. Regional partners have provided grants, recovery loans, and technical assistance to help them reopen and rebuild after repeated flooding. Sustained investment in these local institutions, alongside housing and infrastructure, can help families remain in the region and communities prepare for future disasters.
Flooding in Kentucky - At a Glance
ADD DATA - THIS IS WHERE THE ARCGIS MAP WILL GO
Recent Floods and Recovery Challenges
July 2022: A 1-in-1000-year flood becomes national crisis
Historic flooding devastated Eastern Kentucky, damaging thousands of homes. In Breathitt, Knott, Letcher, and Perry counties, the damage affected approximately 22 percent of occupied housing units. Rebuilding exposed longstanding shortages of affordable housing, construction workers, and suitable sites for new homes.
February 2025: Winter flooding devastates the region again
Significant flooding returned to Eastern Kentucky on February 15–16, affecting rivers, creeks, and communities across multiple counties. The disaster reinforced the need to address both rapid flooding in small watersheds and rising water along larger rivers.
June-Aug. 2026: The summer deluge hits recovering communities
Flooding in late June claimed lives in Madison and Jackson counties and trapped residents in their homes. These losses underscore the importance of timely warnings, safe evacuation routes, and support for communities facing repeated disasters.
Putting Our Platform to Work in Kentucky
Strengthen Local Capacity
Eastern Kentucky’s local governments need sustained staffing, technical assistance, and resources to manage long-term recovery processes while maintaining everyday services. Reducing burdensome local matching requirements, speeding up reimbursements, and supporting planning, grant administration, resilient infrastructure, and emergency communications before the next disaster is critical for creating a resilient Kentucky.
Explore Pillar I → (ADD LINK)
Support Households Through Recovery
Families need affordable options to repair, rebuild, or relocate to safer homes following a disaster. Expand disaster case management, simplify access to assistance, improve flood insurance affordability, and make housing recovery accessible to renters, manufactured-home residents, older adults, and people with disabilities.
Explore Pillar II → (ADD LINK)
Improve Flood Information and Warnings
Flood information must reflect the risks along Eastern Kentucky’s small streams and narrow valleys. Invest in updated rainfall data, flood mapping, stream monitoring, and landslide information. Pair better forecasting with multiple ways to deliver warnings, including when power, internet, or cellular service fails.
Explore Pillar III → (ADD LINK)
Restore Watersheds and Reduce Risk
Healthy forests, streams, wetlands, and floodplains are part of Kentucky’s flood resilience infrastructure. Support mine-land reclamation, reforestation, floodplain restoration, and carefully planned stream restoration and debris management. Coordinate projects across watersheds to reduce risks while protecting water quality and downstream communities.
Explore Pillar IV → (ADD LINK)
Resilience in Action
The Housing Development Alliance is integrating flood recovery with affordable housing development in Eastern Kentucky. Its work includes repairing homes and building new housing on higher ground, with services focused on Breathitt, Knott, Leslie, and Perry counties.
This approach connects recovery with reducing future flood exposure. It also illustrates why housing investments must be paired with roads, water and sewer service, construction capacity, and affordable options that allow families to remain connected to their communities.
Learn more about Housing Development Alliance’s recovery work here → (ADD LINK)
Coalition Connections in Kentucky
Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center
Based in Whitesburg, ACLC connects its experience of the 2022 Eastern Kentucky floods with research, advocacy, and regional collaboration to advance long-term flood resilience.
Explore ACLC’s flood resilience work →
Kentucky Conservation Committee
Kentucky Conservation Committee advances policies that protect Kentucky’s land, water, and natural communities. Through legislative advocacy and public education, it supports wetlands protection, land conservation, and natural climate solutions that connect healthy ecosystems with community resilience.
Explore KCC’s conservation work →
Kentucky Resources Council
Kentucky Resources Council provides legal, technical, and advocacy support to communities facing environmental threats. Its work protects rivers and public lands, holds polluters accountable, and helps residents who cannot otherwise obtain legal representation address threats to their water, land, and health.
Explore KRC’s community defense work →
Kentucky Waterways Alliance
Kentucky Waterways Alliance works with communities to protect and restore rivers and streams. Its watershed planning, grants, and cleanup projects support healthier waterways across Kentucky, including efforts to remove waste tires from the Levisa Fork and Big Sandy River in Eastern Kentucky.
Explore KWA’s watershed projects →
LiKEN Knowledge
LiKEN connects community knowledge with research to support flood recovery and healthier watersheds in Eastern Kentucky. Through their Water Collaboratory and East Kentucky Water Network, LiKEN helps communities to strengthen water resilience and access to clean, reliable, affordable drinking water.
Resources for Kentucky
Kentucky Emergency Management (KYEM)
State emergency management information and connections to preparedness, response, and recovery resources.
Kentucky Division of Water - Flooding & Drought
Information on floodplain management, flood insurance, mitigation, and what to do after a flood.
Access flood maps, mapping-study information, and other tools for understanding flood hazards.
Kentucky Disaster Recovery Program
Information on CDBG-DR investments in housing, infrastructure, and long-term disaster recovery.
Learn about interagency collaboration to address flood risk in Kentucky.
Help Build a More Flood-Resilient Kentucky
Working on flood recovery or resilience in Appalachian Kentucky? Share your community’s experience, connect us with local projects and research, and help strengthen our advocacy.
Connect With the Coalition → (ADD LINK)
