MAGOFFIN – While Magoffin County faired better than many Eastern Kentucky counties, last week’s historic flood did cause quite a bit of property damage and required many water rescues.
Flooding started on July 26, with Magoffin County Judge/Executive Matt Wireman declaring a state of emergency for Magoffin County by July 28. At that time, he reported there were damaged homes and property in the county, as well as washed out culverts and roadways, making several impassable.
The Magoffin County Rescue Squad responded to around 20 water rescue call, multiple traffic hazards and many other EMS, police, fire and rescue calls for assistance, then many of the members traveled to surrounding counties to help with rescues there.
Magoffin County Schools sent out a One Call on Thursday, July 28, extending a helping hand to any families in need due to the flooding, reminding them to reach out to their school’s Family Resource Centers.
Water outages plagued parts of the county due to low water pressure not being able to push the supply out to certain areas of the county until Sunday, and close to 50 major county road issues had been reported, but Magoffin was spared the devastation many other Eastern Kentucky counties saw, where whole towns washed away and, at press time, 37 flood-related deaths reported in total Breathitt, Clay, Knott, Letcher and Perry, with three more women from Breathitt County still unaccounted for.
For those who did sustain flood damages to their homes and/or property, Judge Wireman asked people to call the judge/executive’s office at 606-349-2313 so they can give the addresses to the FEMA assessors. As always, officials remind everyone with damages to document everything, take pictures, make lists of lost and/or damaged items, etc., before starting the cleanup process.
A federal disaster declaration has been made for the state and qualifying local governments, with individual FEMA assistance approved for Breathitt, Clay, Floyd, Knott, Letcher, Perry and Pike counties. Governor Andy Beshear has requested FEMA to grant individual disaster assistance to Magoffin, as well as Johnson, Leslie, Martin and Owsley counties, but those have not been approved federally at this time.
