Ky must learn from W.Va: Flood recovery will require accountability, oversight.

Eastern Kentucky is in the midst of some of the worst flooding the area has ever seen. With a death toll now above 30 and expected to climb, the damage both to property and lives is immense. “These are incredibly strong people,” Governor Andy Beshear observed while delivering the grim new death toll for this mostly rural part of Appalachia. No doubt charity, donations, and state and federal disaster relief funding will be rushed to the area to aid the cleanup even before the flood waters fully recede.

But recent history indicates it isn’t only the people that will need to be strong, but also the accountability and oversight to that incoming aid.

Kentuckians and others only need to look next door to West Virginia, which was ravaged by floods in 2016 and is still trying to sort out the shambles of a response to that tragedy. Twenty three people died in some of the worst flooding the state had ever seen, and the worst flash flood death toll in America in over a decade. The flooding in West Virginia, along with tornadoes spawned from the same storm system along the wider Ohio River Valley, caused over a billion dollars in damage. In response, hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the area to help the recovery and rebuilding effort.

The flood of money designed to be of help turned out to be a disaster of another making, mostly of the man-made incompetence variety. There have been at least two separate federal investigations into how federal funds were used — or not used — as intended since 2019. “Most recently, the WV legislature revealed an investigation into how $149 million in HUD funds ought to be used. Apparently, the investigation was launched in 2019, but has not yet reached a conclusion.” The issue with demolishing flood damaged homes from the 2016 required attention in the current West Virginia Legislative session to try and sort out.

There are other issues that run even deeper and are having generational consequences. In Nicholas County, where the city of Richwood suffered some of the worst of the flood, three schools closed due to the disaster are no closer to being replaced than they were in 2016. Richwood Middle School, Richwood High School, and Summersville Middle School all were damaged and condemned after the 2016 storms. After years of wrangling and politics at the local, state, and federal level, FEMA authorized a $131 million grant to the West Virginia School Building Authority, with the Nicholas County School Board in charge of allocating the funds to replace the schools. $17 million of that amount has already been spent.

And as of June of 2022, there still isn’t even an approved plan to start building anything, let alone breaking ground. “We’re talking about kids that have been displaced from their educational environment. The kids that were in school, have graduated college, and got a career in the time that we can’t figure out how to break ground,” Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh told West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Nicholas County now has a deadline of December 2024 to use the funds or pay them back to FEMA.

Problems from petty local squabbles to state legislative delays, to misspent/misappropriated funds, to federal regulatory red tape, and good old-fashioned human nature all combined to make the allocation of funds to West Virginia for the 2016 floods still a problem in 2022.

Kentucky should learn from West Virginia’s experience. As Kentuckians wait for the waters to recede and mourn the loss of life, government agencies and charitable organizations alike should prepare not only to dump huge sums of money into Eastern Kentucky, but also have a plan for making sure such funding is used as intended.

Oversight of local governments, which mostly do not have experience or means to handle the millions of dollars that might be headed their way, will be essential not only to alleviate human suffering but properly restoring infrastructure, homes, and businesses to what they can be post-disaster. At the state level, it is essential that the government and legislature play a vital role in the facilitation and the administration of federal funds, providing oversight to make sure they are spent on the things that matter most to the people most in need. The federal government and agencies like FEMA likewise cannot take a “blank check and move on” approach to recovery, but need to make sure they are funding what needs to be funded.

Most of all the people of Kentucky must take care of themselves and each other by holding elected officials accountable for how they respond to this disaster, both materially and fiscally.

A government that cannot aid the people it is supposed to serve and represent is worse than useless, being an additional burden and leach on an already strained and imposed-upon public. Proper accountability is always lacking in our American system of government, but is never more necessary than in the life and death matters of disaster recovery. Recent history, common sense, and all sense of moral clarity dictate we can, we must, do better.

Andrew Donaldson is a widely published writer and media commentator. He serves as the managing editor of Ordinary-Times.com, hosts a daily culture and politics program called Heard Tell, is a contributor for Young Voices, and has appeared on Fox News, Fox News Radio, The Young Turks Network, Times Radio (UK), and various other media outlets.