While people’s homes are destroyed and looters pilfer through the contents of their lives that lie stacked in driveways, Letcher County’s city police officers and sheriff’s deputies have been patrolling in borrowed cars, assisted by officers from cities more than 100 miles away.
Patrol cars were submerged in floodwaters, leaving police to drive their personal vehicles with no radios until other agencies stepped up to help.
Meanwhile, Letcher County’s two ambulance services have also lost vehicles and at least one fire department has been left without a single engine.
At Letcher Volunteer Fire Department, every firetruck was half-submerged and ruined, and Letcher Emergency Medical Service, which uses equipment leased from the department, lost three of its five ambulances.
Neon Volunteer Fire Department lost both of its four-wheel-drive ambulances and a firetruck, all of which were stored in its old station house.
The Letcher County Sheriff ’s Department lost at least six of its cruisers, leaving only Sheriff Mickey Stines’s pickup.
Stines said the losses included two used, low-mileage Ford Police Interceptor Utilities that were parked under the sheriff ’s office. The vehicles cost $23,000 each and had already been outfitted with lights, sirens and radios.
“We were just waiting for the stripe kits,” Stines said.
Whitesburg Police Assistant Chief Justin Hunsucker said that department lost at least two cruisers, including the Dodge Durango he usually drives. Another is likely to be at least temporarily out of service because of flood damage. Hunsucker said he’s grateful to other departments that have either loaned or given his department and others in the county vehicles outright.
“I’ve got two that have actually been donated so far, and others that are on loan,” he said. Gallatin, Tennessee, has loaned the agency four black-and-whites, and Hunsucker said those may be donated as well. Church Hill, Tennessee, a suburb of Kingsport, has also loaned the city a car, and Sumner County, Tennessee has given it a 2011 Impala complete with all police equipment. Hunsucker said he’s not going to refuse any car the department is offered, because if Whitesburg doesn’t need it Stines or someone else in the county will.
Mt. Washington, Kentucky, near Louisville, has sent four police officers and two cars, and Glasgow, near Bowling Green, has also sent four officers and two cars as well. There are police cars in town from Ohio and from West Virginia. Sheriff Stines has promised to deputize officers from other areas who come here to help.
Other than those from Mt. Washing ton and Glasgow, “All these police cars from other places that you see are being driven by local officers,” County Judge/Executive Terry Adams said.
In Jenkins, police lost a Tahoe to the floodwaters and are working to replace it and get a spare in case something else happens.
Chief Jim Stephens said credit for those vehicles goes to Koty Sexton, who left Jenkins to join the Marines, and moved to Lawrenceburg when he finished his service. Sexton is in the process of joining the police department there, and when his lieutenant heard he was from Jenkins he asked what he could do to help.
“We’re getting a police car donated to us from Lawrenceburg, and it’s all because a guy from Jenkins lives there,” Stephens said.
In Neon, Fire Chief Carter Bevins said his department lost two four-wheel-drive ambulances that are used in winter when they’re needed to traverse icy roads. The ambulances were stored for the summer in the department’s old station because there isn’t enough space in the new station for all of the ambulances.
“Water had never been in it before, and it was fourand a-half feet high,” Bevins said.
Letcher Volunteer Fire Department was even worse. Longtime fireman and EMT Wallace “Spanky” Bolling Jr. said the department lost every single firetruck it had. On Friday, the station doors were pushed outward from the force of the water, and the water line was about five feet above the ground.
Shawn Gilley, president of Gilley Enterprises, which has leased the ambulance service from Letcher Volunteer Fire Department, said his agency lost three ambulances, its body transport van, and all of its stored medical supplies.
“We lost every ambulance except two, and we would have lost those if they hadn’t been out on runs,” Gilley said.
Gilley said his own fifth-wheel camper and a camper belonging to his mother-in-law were parked at the station, and both of those were washed downstream. He said he doesn’t know where they are and it probably wouldn’t matter if he did. Residents downstream told him they saw at least one float by and hit two bridges before it came apart.
“They said one of my campers hit the bridge and just disintegrated,” Gilley said.
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