Cleanup continues across Kentucky today after heavy rain caused flooding and claimed the lives of seven people.

At least 70 counties declared a state of emergency last week.

Today, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet reports more than 200 roads are still blocked because of flooding, mostly in western Kentucky.

Since the flooding began, the American Red cross has had boots on the ground coordinating disaster relief.

Last week, Kentucky Edition tagged along with some volunteers to get a closer look at the first steps on the road to recovery.

This one's a little bit more drastic, I think, because it's a prolonged flood.

You know, something that's going to be up for 2 or 3 days and people are just anxious to get back into their homes to see what they have to do to get on the road to recovery.

A lot of them, or they haven't experienced this.

So they're going to be kind of in a dark.

And that's where the Red cross is.

Step in and kind of help them.

They help them through casework and try to get them going in the right direction for their recovery.

What we focus on, as far as immediate needs go, are making sure that people have a safe place to stay, that warm meal, someplace they can go, during the day if they're cleaning up, charge their phone, take a break.

Currently, we have close to 400 Red cross volunteers and disaster responders on the ground across Kentucky from Paducah and Bowling Green to Louisville and Frankfort.

Really just being out in the community helping support our neighbors.

Operating over a dozen shelters just to, make sure people have somewhere safe to stay and a warm meal to eat, some place to charge their phone.

As they, figure out their next steps since the floods hit, we've been on the ground offering shelter.

We pre-positioned supplies before the rains started.

Before the rains started.

We have, worked with local partners to identify sheltering locations.

Really, whatever we can do to help support our communities after will work with these local communities.

Identify their needs and do our best to support them, as they work on their road to recovery.

And that can differ depending on the person, depending on the community.

Louisville, central Kentucky, you get western Kentucky, western Kentucky, you know, all this stuff up here in Louisville, you got to go down to Paducah.

So it's widespread.

And not only do you have to contend with the river and Kentucky River, you've got to contend with all the little streams going into that.

So, you know, this is a widespread operation is covering just about the whole city.

Quite a few, you know, homes that, water six, seven feet inside the homes and, you know, a lot of the areas are still in assessable because of the high water cross roads.

So, you know, the damage is out there.

We just got to go out and find that 90% of our workforce, our volunteers.

And these are people that put their personal lives on hold, and just stay.

When that disaster happens, they come, they show up, they fan out into the community to help wherever the need is.

And they stay, usually for two weeks at a time, sometimes longer.

Just in communities in need.

I think it's so much out of my community, and I want to get back, and I want to make sure that these people have a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel and if I can do that in any way, shape or form, then I've done my job.

And thank goodness for them.

According to a report from the city of Frankfort, the Red cross has completed nearly 600 damage assessment reports in Franklin County since the floods hit.