WOODFORD FEED OWNER Bob Cleveland and his staff sent a trailer (donated by D&M Landscaping) full of chicken feed and pet food to flood victims in eastern Kentucky last Friday. On Friday, Aug. 12, hundreds of donated bales of hay will be taken there by local citizens in their own flatbed trucks. (Photo by Greg Dotson)
THIS WOODFORD Public Schools bus filled with supplies for flood victims arrived in eastern Kentucky Friday morning. (Photo submitted)
A SECOND SCHOOL BUS was loaded by teachers, school personnel and others at Woodford County High School Monday morning for another trip to eastern Kentucky. Judge-Executive James Kay said he expects people to continue donating and he’ll make sure the supplies get to where they’re needed. (Photo by James Kay)
Two vans and a Woodford County Public Schools bus left Woodford County High School for flood-ravaged eastern Kentucky around 7:15 Friday morning, July 29 – earlier than planned to avoid, ironically, rain that arrived about a half-hour later.
One of the organizers for the ongoing relief effort is Tracey Francis, the school district’s director of special education. Francis grew up in the Confluence Area in Leslie County and her mother, her brother and his family, and several cousins and aunts still live there, she said.
“The floods washed through the mountains. It didn’t come up out of the river, it is actually blocking them in right now,” she said Friday morning. She said the flood ripped apart roads and left her folks back home without clean water or electricity, but it could have been worse.
“It got up to the home – like, the steps – but it didn’t get into their homes,” Francis said.
Friday afternoon, a trailer belonging to Woodford EMS picked up supplies left in the front hallway of WCHS that didn’t fit on the school bus and two vans. Aboard were Woodford Emergency Management (EM) Deputy Johnny Mills and County Maintenance Supervisor Rick Wade who, after dropping off the donated items, accompanied Woodford EM Director Drew Chandler and Deputy Brian Clark back home, Chandler said. Chandler and Clark had been in eastern Kentucky for six days.
Francis said Friday’s relief effort was, in part, the result of teamwork with a cousin and fellow eastern Kentucky native employed by the Madison County school system and worked with judges and court personnel in Perry County.
The same day, a trailer belonging to D&M Mowing & Landscaping (of Versailles) loaded with four tons of chicken feed and pet food donated by Stonehedge Farm Produce left Woodford Feed for the trip to eastern Kentucky. Woodford Feed had begun selling hay at a discounted price ($6 per bale) and by Monday, more than 300 bales had been purchased and donated. The bales will be driven east Friday by local citizens in their own flatbed trucks, according to longtime Woodford Feed employee Greg Dotson.
Collection efforts continued over the weekend, and Monday morning, teachers and others filled up another school bus packed with supplies for another trip to eastern Kentucky.
“The lobby (of WCHS) was full this morning,” said Woodford Judge-Executive James Kay, who’s overseeing government-related relief efforts. “And after we loaded everything, I was just surprised at how much more stuff was back in the lobby this morning. So Tracey Francis and her efforts and … our community’s open heart and giving, has been amazing.”
Kay praised Chandler for requesting to travel to eastern Kentucky, and the first responders who gathered and delivered supplies, and the school district’s teachers, support staff and Superintendent Danny Adkins, an eastern Kentucky native.
“Superintendent Adkins has been on board from the very beginning, and we’ve been coordinating that and directing resources to the high school, but the teachers and the students – they bring a level of altruism and giving that just inspires our community,” Kay said. “We just have a really great team.”
Kay said he expects people to continue donating and pledged that one way or another, he’ll make sure the supplies get to where they’re needed.
“That’s what the county government is here for – to get people to work together and to maximize our efforts. I’m honored to do it, but it wouldn’t be the success it is without the great people in this community,” Kay said.
Francis said she and her cousin have been touched by the generosity of their adopted hometowns.
“It’s our family, it’s our home. You can take the girl out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountains out of the girl. It’s just home and it’s our family, but the devastation is horrific,” she said.
Francis said her mother, who’s in her 60s, said the flooding is the worst of her lifetime.
“I think that it is going to take years to recover from and the school systems down there are damaged to the point that some of those schools aren’t going to open, and I think the impact it’s going to have on kids and families is going to be unprecedented. I think a lot of families are going to have to relocate due to it. I don’t know; we’ll just have to see,” she said.