Life and Times in Eastern Kentucky

(Photo by Chris Begley)

Episode 7 of RISE, an Eastern Standard documentary series, focuses on the debate over long standing plans to build another federal prison in eastern Kentucky - a region with the greatest concentration of federal prisons among…

(Photo by Chris Begley)

Forty-five lives were lost. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed by the flash flood in July of 2022. While still adjusting to such heavy loss and amid much uncertainty, Eastern Kentuckians are giving careful consideration…

(Photo by Jeanne Marie Hibberd)

In RISE, Episode Five: response, recovery, preparedness, the three phases that follow a natural disaster. Six months after a moisture-laden storm stalled above and relentlessly drenched southeast Kentucky the region remains somewhere among those stages.…

(Photo by Chris Begley)

Episode Four of RISE explores the psychology of crisis and how mental health has been affected by experiencing the flash flood of July 27-28, 2023. Hear about impacts on survivors who have lost everything, children troubled…

(Photo by Chris Begley)

Episode three of RISE investigates an increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as the moisture-heavy storm system that stalled above 13 eastern Kentucky counties on the night of July 27, 2022 and intensified well into…

New home under construction by the Housing Development Alliance for flood victims in Knott County (Photo by Jeanne Marie Hibberd)

Episode Two focuses on a pre-existing housing shortage made far worse by the flood; flood insurance issues; floodplain mapping; leadership…

Michelle Lucas outside her home in Camp Branch, Kentucky (Photo by Chris Begley)

Episode One captures what happened on the early morning of July 28, 2022 when several communities in Eastern Kentucky experienced record flooding that eventually claimed 44 lives…