EKy needs help getting back on its feet. Here’s how the General Assembly could help.

Being a child of Appalachia one learns quickly to pay special heed to certain home spun wisdom. “Don’t trust a man with dirty pants but clean shoes,” “the shortest pencil is better than the longest memory.” Then there’s one that my people have had to know a little too well: “if something can go wrong, it usually will.”

Yes, breaks for the mountains haven’t usually been a common thing. In fact we seem to shoulder more than our share of the burden of so many hardships. Last weeks devastating flooding is just another in a long string of disasters that keep shaking our infrastructure, challenging our economy, and that unfortunately send far too many people out of the mountains forever.

One thing you can count on. The mountains aren’t going away. For years our region has played a crucial role in the unique character of the Bluegrass and has produced some of Kentucky’s best and brightest. You’d need only look to the Lexington skyline to see the outsized importance of eastern Kentucky’s contributions near and far. But as so much aid pours into a region that could really use a hand up and hearts around the country seem willing to help, it’s worth mentioning that this region’s suffering is nothing new.

For years Appalachia has contended with flooding. It comes with the territory of scattered towering peaks and low lying valleys. As mountain top removal has been regulated to the point of near obsolescence, flat land now comes at a considerable premium and can usually be found cheaper along the river banks or areas close to them. People too often have had to make do after flooding with damaged homes that make situations all the much harder. FEMA assistance and SBA lending are great options that help struggling families pick up the pieces in times like these, but one thing none of us want to see is more people leaving eastern Kentucky behind them.

If experience is any indicator, many of them won’t. If they’re left with the choice of living in a flood prone area or leaving their lives and families behind to make a go of it some place new, they’ll be right back where they were before and in a few years time we’ll see much of these all too familiar hardships play out again. To help put these problems in the rear view mirror for these families for good and to begin to attract the new industry, we need to develop a more modern economy, and just as a matter of reasonableness, our region needs more secure places for people to live and work.

As the General Assembly prepares for a special session to address this disaster, a favor that they could do themselves and for generations of future eastern Kentuckians is allocate some of the nearly $3 billion dollars in surplus funds that a robust economy has left us towards grants to expand water and sewer access to new mountain top areas that could be readily developed for quality housing, as well as incentives for local investors to begin readying those sites. As it stands, there are very few quality sites ready for residential development, even those that are could likely never be profitable because of the enormous price of serving the property with these basic utilities. Much of the region and many of the affected areas are currently planning to construct new school buildings. Locating these buildings in areas conducive to residential development could help alleviate some of those burdens to local partners who would would otherwise be unable to shoulder them.

It’s also important to note that as dedicated as the federal response may be, it is always a long, slow march to cash in hand. FEMA funds will be available to local governments to help rebuild roads, bridges, and critical infrastructure (like water lines and even the plants themselves) but even after that funding is approved it only comes after the work is finished. To get started it’s left with the local governments to bear the brunt of the cost and It only takes a brief look at the balance sheet (as well as the years of backlogged FEMA projects) to find that they are already strapped for funds and fronting the millions of dollars it will take to begin repairs will result in the disruption of essential services to people who are already hurting. It’s an unconscionable truth that the General Assembly must address if they’re truly committed to getting our region back on our feet.

The challenge is daunting here, it always has been, but every time so has our resolve. This time though resolve may not be enough by itself. With or without help we will get through, but for once, Appalachia shouldn’t have to wait. We don’t just need money, we need smart money, money to get more money. We need money to have the man power to do these jobs, to make flooding less of a threat, to make turn all of this horror into a catalyst for growth instead of the enormous setback that it easily could be. To have even an outside shot at getting back to normal instead of losing more ground, this time we need you. Please, don’t let us down.

Derek Jorge Campbell is a Hazard resident and an attorney practicing in central and eastern Kentucky. He is a candidate for county attorney.