Kentucky's Appalachian lawmakers have a plan to combat flooding, climate disasters

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — Lawmakers representing Kentucky’s mountainous Appalachian counties are coalescing behind an effort this legislative session to bolster resiliency to natural disasters in the wake of extreme Eastern Kentucky floods.

Several members of the General Assembly’s Mountain Caucus will seek funding this year to form a new agency-level resilience office charged with mitigating, preparing for and responding to disasters, including damaging storms and earthquakes, biohazards, public-health emergencies and cyberattacks.

Eastern Kentucky’s rugged topography, temperate climate and surface mine-scarred landscape make it uniquely prone to dangerous and damaging floods.

A 13-county region stretching northeast from Williamsburg to Paintsville has been included in the lion’s share of Kentucky’s federally declared disasters. They average double the number of flooding events than any other counties in the state, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Several Eastern Kentucky lawmakers who told the Herald-Leader they favor forming a resilience office referenced devastating July 2022 flash floods that claimed the lives of 45 Kentuckians in and around Hazard. That landmark event, one of the deadliest American floods in more than 80 years, has convinced some of the staunchest fiscal conservatives in Frankfort of the need to expand some executive powers.

“I’m not a big-government person,” said Sen. Robin Webb, R-Grayson, who co-chairs the Disaster Prevention and Resiliency Task Force that recommended the legislature form the new office late last year. “I think if you form another layer of government that it’s got to pay for itself, and I’m convinced this does.”

Every dollar spent on disaster mitigation yields at least $13 in savings, Webb said. She said she intends to work with Senate leadership to establish the resilience office and make the task force a permanent legislative fixture.

Other recommendations focused on updating state building codes, encouraging better land-use policies and incorporating flood reductions into local and regional government planning documents can be coordinated out of the new office, in partnership with the Kentucky Emergency Management Division, Webb added.

“When we’re looking at our budget and deciding how we’re going to be spending our money as a commonwealth, we have to look long-term at what these disasters are going to cost us if we’re not prepared and if we’re not efficient,” Rep. Mitch Whitaker, R-Fleming-Neon, said during a task-force meeting in November.

The task force has been eyeing projects that would fall under the resilience office’s purview. The University of Pikeville wants the state to chip in $11 million this session toward the construction of a new 500-acre athletic complex on a reclaimed mine that would also serve as a disaster relief center.

Last year’s early spring floods on the Levisa Fork left hundreds of Pike, Floyd, Johnson and Lawrence county residents seeking temporary shelter. Pikeville’s Appalachian Wireless Arena was reserved for a basketball tournament, leaving emergency officials scrambling to find temporary shelter.

The Eastern Kentucky Disaster Relief Center at Bear Mountain would create a state-approved clearinghouse for emergency management operations and shelter during major regional flooding events, said Rep. Ashley Tackett Laferty, D-Martin.

The task force’s recommendations are a priority for groups with interests in Eastern Kentucky because of the downstream effects of flooding on affordable housing, access to education and unemployment.

“We consider this a priority for Kentucky because we’ve been hit with an inordinate amount of climate disasters over the past couple of years, and so we want to make sure that the task force begins implementing some of those recommendations,” said Michael Washburn, executive director of the Kentucky Waterways Alliance.

Power bills and Medicaid cuts are looming

Affordability remains a top priority for many of the Eastern Kentucky legislators the Herald-Leader spoke to during the General Assembly’s first two weeks in session.

The region’s electricity bills are among the highest in the state, particularly for Kentucky Power customers, who are facing rate hikes the company says it needs to cover infrastructure improvements and make up for the loss of residential and industrial customers.

Kentucky Power reached a last-minute settlement with several of the parties that intervened in its Kentucky Public Service Commission rate-increase case earlier this month that would lower the hike for average residential customers and spread rate increases out over three years.

The company proposed postponing tax obligations on its balance sheet to boost average residential rates 8% this year, 9% in 2027 and 12% in 2028.

“A big part of that is that we’re just seeing no growth in our territory,” Kentucky Power President and Chief Operating Officer Cynthia Wiseman told the three-person panel Jan. 13.

The reasons utilities are feeling strained differ along political lines. Republicans like Sen. Brandon Smith, Hazard, are casting blame on Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for slow-walking commercial permits in the energy sector.

“Less dependence on coal has left our communities with a lack of jobs and higher electric bills,” Rep. Nick Wilson, R-Williamsburg, said.

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s regional energy transition grid is under pressure from energy-sapping artificial intelligence data centers that are gobbling up more power than producers can generate, especially as more aging coal-fired power plants go offline.

“Decisions being made today about plant retirements and long-term planning will determine whether our Commonwealth can keep the lights on and electricity affordable,” said Katelyn Bunning, executive director of Dependable Power First KY, a business coalition and lobbying group that advocates for coal and gas baseline generation.

Beshear pledged $75 million to help at-risk Kentuckians pay their utility bills in his budget proposal, and Eastern Kentucky advocacy organizations are pushing for the legislature to reconsider legislation that died last year that would protect against utility shutoffs, particularly during extreme weather events.

Medicaid cuts President Donald Trump’s administration swept through Congress in July could, by some estimates, shutter 35 rural hospitals in Kentucky, 16 of which are in Eastern Kentucky, said Rep. Adriell Camuel, a Lexington Democrat who counts herself among the Mountain Caucus members.

House Minority Caucus Chair Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington, introduced legislation that would make a $355 million emergency appropriation over the next two years into a revolving loan fund to bail out rural hospitals

“People shouldn’t have to travel even farther when they’re sick,” said House Democratic Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, a Mountain Caucus member. “It’s also worth noting that hospitals are often a major employer and economic anchor in their communities.”

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