Rome wasn't built in a day.

It's an expression that has come up several times from our neighbors in eastern Kentucky as they continue to recover following the deadly flooding that hit one year ago today.

The mayor of Jackson and Bradford County said she knows building back a city takes time.

And our main focus right now giving people a reason to stick around to help make that happen.

It's been it's been rough, but as rough it is as it has been for me as an elected official, it that's not near as rough is what so many people have been going through.

If they have been displaced from the flooding.

We're here talking about the anniversary of 22 flood, but so many of those people were also affected by a major flood in 21.

So just when they thought they got their homes livable again and they were back in their homes and then they were slammed again.

And so people right now are living in housing situations that they really shouldn't be in, but they feel like, you know, they don't want to leave the community and they have nowhere to go.

They don't have the resources and they're just kind of in a waiting holding pattern because they don't know what's next.

Flooding is the costliest and most widespread spread disaster.

The biggest issue is the time it takes to get people back on their feet.

If it takes years, unfortunately, we see it can be really hard for communities to recover.

People have left because they didn't have a home.

And then you have, you know, over a hundred people have signed up for the one of the buyout programs.

I would say we're close to 200 now in the city and county.

If you don't have housing, you can't have people.

And if you don't have people, you don't have a community.

We've got to keep people.

And if the people that stay, they shouldn't be expected to pick up the tax bill of all the people that have left.

People often have to move away, change jobs, change schools.

It impacts the taxpayer.

So I think that's the biggest challenge, is just we have to do this quickly and make people whole.

We can't drag this on for years or else really jeopardize having a strong recovery for, you know, the communities and the people that live there.

So the more information that can be communicated, the better chance you have of people coming back to the community and of making this a little bit easier.

And the other thing I would say is communities need to be planning for rebuilding in a way that's better than what they have before, because what we had before couldn't stand up to the flooding we saw.

To get Jackson back on its feet.

I think it's going to take a lot of work, but I think it's going to take a variety of funding type packages to help.

We need jobs.

So, you know, we needs some employers that will provide job opportunities.

And then we also need people for those jobs.

So we don't want to lose our people.

We have people that want to work and then we need homes for those people.

So I think it's going to take a whole lot of figuring out problems that are chicken, egg and chicken egg.

So you got to kind of do it all at the same time.

We are working to develop a long range comprehensive plan.

Hopefully, the funding that has been allocated, the federal disaster dollars and other of other federal programs through the infrastructure bill and some state programs that we will just really utilize those dollars in a wise way in plan for projects that will have a lasting impact so that 20 years from now, when somebody comes to Jackson and they says and they say, well, what happened to that?

You know, you all had access to $297 million, what would you do with it?

You know, hopefully we'll have good improvements to show for it and it'll be a busy town with lots of economic activity and cool things going on.

Mayor Thomas tells us there are still destroyed homes and large piles of debris throughout the city.

She adds that even if the debris is picked up, there's no place to put it.

Last week, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Secretary Jim Gray told lawmakers that crews were now in the final phase of debris cleanup in eastern Kentucky.