‘Rainstorm to an Armageddon’: Eastern Ky. family cleaning up from flood damage
PERRY COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Tim Deaton and his family live in the Rowdy community of Perry County.
They now spend their time cleaning up a more than one-hundred-year-old home at Holliday Farm and Garden.
”Woke up around 1:00 in the morning, and it went from being a rainstorm to an Armageddon in an hour and a half, said Deaton. “That’s the best way I can describe it.”
Deaton said they saved about 10% of the homeowner’s personal belongings. The rest now sits ready to be hauled off.
”Everything, that’s what these piles are, is her whole life,” he added. “A lot of the family’s history that’s had to be destroyed.”
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is helping homeowners who are cleaning up flood damage. The cabinet contracted AshBritt to pick up debris piles outside of homes..
Crews spent Monday working in Perry and Breathitt counties.
”It’s going to be a slow process, and obviously they’re going to have to go back over some of the roads,” said H.B. Elkins with KYTC District 10.
There are some items crews will not pick up, like regular household trash and bagged debris. They will pick up plant litter but it cannot be bagged.
”We’re looking for construction and demolition debris if a house has been destroyed,” he said. “Electronic items that were destroyed computers, televisions, that sort of thing.”
Eleven of the 13 counties covered by the disaster declaration opted to join the contract: Breathitt, Clay, Floyd, Johnson, Knott, Leslie, Letcher, Martin, Owsley, Perry and Pike.
The contract allows people living in the included counties to put most types of flood debris in front of their homes to be picked up by AshBritt officials.
Below is a list of the items you can leave out for pickup:
- Construction and demolition materials – non-recyclable building construction materials such as drywall, asphalt shingles, sinks / tubs, floor tiles, etc.; non-recyclable building contents and personal property, such as carpeting / rugs, furniture and clothing.
- Electronic waste – electrical or electronic devices such as TVs, computers, printers, radios and small appliances.
- Household hazardous waste – paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, pesticides, etc. Must be in a secured container and not leaking in any way.
- Large home appliances – large appliances such as stoves, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines and driers. Residents are cautioned to follow local government guidelines for disposal of refrigerators, which must be free of rotted food if placed outside for pickup.
- Vegetative materials – debris from trees, limbs, brush, leaves.
Here are resources for how to sort and where to place debris.
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