
New Task Force Focused on Disaster Prevention
Clip: Season 3 Episode 282 | 3m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
The newly created task force held its first meeting on Friday.
One of the new task forces to come out of the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly is focused on disaster prevention. The task force held its first meeting on Friday and discussed the several natural disasters that Kentucky's seen in recent years, and how the state can prepare for the future.
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Kentucky Edition is a local public television program presented by KET

New Task Force Focused on Disaster Prevention
Clip: Season 3 Episode 282 | 3m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
One of the new task forces to come out of the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly is focused on disaster prevention. The task force held its first meeting on Friday and discussed the several natural disasters that Kentucky's seen in recent years, and how the state can prepare for the future.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipAnother legislative task force met today in Frankfurt.
This one is new the Disaster Prevention and Resiliency Task Force.
As our Emily Sisk reports today, the group discussed several natural disasters Kentucky's been through and how the state can prepare for the future.
Well, you can't really prevent an Act of Niger per se, but you can be ready for it.
That was the theme of Friday's Disaster Prevention and Resiliency Task Force meeting led by co-chair Robin Webb of Carter County, Kentucky, has experienced nearly 20 natural disasters in the last five years, including flooding and tornadoes.
Earlier this year.
All disasters begin local and local, and we know that.
But when it outweighs that local resource, then the state steps in.
And when it outweighs that state resource, the federal, government weighs in.
But the federal government hasn't stepped in to help with all of the state's natural disasters.
So far, President Donald Trump has only signed off on providing federal relief to victims of flooding in February, mostly those in eastern Kentucky.
Eric Gibson with Kentucky Emergency Management is still holding out to see a FEMA will provide more assistance.
The tornado and the April flooding events still do not have public assistance, authorized by our president.
And so, you know, we've asked our, you know, congressional delegation and everybody to kind of help us move that forward.
Because of that, Gibson said, it's hard to know if the relief money provided by the Kentucky General Assembly will be enough.
The possibility of a special legislative session to allocate more money has been a hot topic the last couple of weeks.
Gibson explained how much money it might take if the federal government doesn't pitch in.
But I can tell you that's hundreds of millions of dollars that it's going to be need needed in our state to recover.
Across that 85 county area, 83 county area that suffered damages that met that federal threshold.
So hundreds of millions of dollars on the flooding event, without public assistance.
That didn't include damage from the May tornadoes in south central Kentucky, which could add on another $100 million of relief.
Currently, nearly 300 households are still displaced from storm damage living in hotels, state parks or travel trailers.
But the emergency management crews have secured permanent residences for around the same number of families.
So that's really good news.
That's the number I really care about the most is how we're moving people to a permanent solution.
And out of the the temporary you know, lifestyle of a motel or, or a state park.
The task force also heard from the American Flood Coalition.
They discussed forms of disaster prevention like removing or preventing development in flood prone areas, along with investing in more weather alert networks.
These are all things the task force said they'll keep in mind before the 2026 legislative session.
For Kentucky edition, I'm Emily Sisk.
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