For a good portion of the country, 2023 has gone down as one of the worst for natural disasters. In Kentucky, residents choked on smoke from northern fires, but otherwise counted themselves lucky.
After all, two natural disasters were still fresh in their minds — within a span of seven months not too long ago, the commonwealth received a double whammy from Mother Nature: a devastating tornado hit several western counties in December 2021, followed by extreme flooding to the east in July 2022.
Northern Kentucky has had its share of disasters – especially floods. The most recent major flooding happened in 2018, a flash flood that took the river over 60 feet for the first time since 1997. That year, the river crested at 64.7 feet and backed up water into creeks and streams, flooding large swaths of land. Yet, the big one, the one the old-timers still talk about, happened in 1937.
The 1937 Ohio River flood began in the middle of winter and lasted from Jan. 18 to Feb. 5. Communities were hit hard, with hundreds dead and thousands left homeless all along the river, from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois. The river crested at a whopping 79.9 feet.
The lessons of the past
Local filmmaker Cam Miller told the story of the Depression-era disaster that he titled, simply, “The Flood.” It provides a blow-by-blow timeline of events, accompanied by on-the-scene radio broadcasts.
“I guess the most interesting thing is how quickly it came,” Miller said. “You think of a flood, you’re usually thinking it’ll be March, April, May, the spring when heavy rains come. This was in the thick of winter … a massive snowfall that melted and then on top of that the rains just kept coming in. Nineteen straight days of rain, and the flood waters kept rising.”
“The emergency response was just amazing to me. … in that time of no internet. Nothing where you can get out a message quickly via mobile phone. It was neighbors and word of mouth,” he said.
In fact, the only mass communication available was radio. Locally, WLW took over to broadcast information about rescue efforts, shelters and aid, but the power was out in many places, and radios didn’t work. A lot of people were just on their own, relying on providence and neighbors for help.
“When your first floor is under water and you’re hunkered upstairs with your family with no communication, you’re just kind of waiting for the neighbor to come by with their rowboat to help you,” Miller said. “So it’s just incredible to read some of the stories of heroism that were going on at that time.”
In the aftermath of the floods, citizens and officials called for an overhaul of flood protections, and, in fact, this is the main event that led to development of the flood walls, gates and pumping facilities in Northern Kentucky. Construction of the flood wall and other protections was interrupted by World War II but was completed by the 1950s. In addition to the flood wall, there are now 15 pumping stations along the Kentucky side of the river.
But how prepared is Northern Kentucky for the next disaster?
Disasters know no boundaries
The state requires each county and municipality to have its own emergency management plan. Yet, Northern Kentucky officials have taken a unique approach. Through an agreement between cities and county governments, the counties have taken the lead.
“There is a lot of regionalization. I don’t think you find that anywhere else in the state,” said William Turner, director of Campbell County’s Office of Emergency Management. “Everybody helps each other. But among the three upper counties, Boone, Kenton and Campbell, it is at a whole new different level.”
Steve Hensley, director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for Kenton County, agreed.
“Our regional approach to local emergency planning has been much more beneficial and advantageous to us, because it brings everybody together to plan and coordinate,” Hensley said. “We’re really the only model right now doing this. It involves Boone, Campbell, Kenton, Owen, Pendleton, Grant, Robertson, Bracken, Gallatin, all together, and we plan regionally. We conduct exercises regionally.”
The counties receive and monitor reports from and about their partner counties across the region. Sometimes, Turner said, one county’s response team might actually be closer to an incident in a neighboring county and can respond quicker.
“If something happens in the southern part of Kenton County, say Visalia, we in Campbell County are about three to five minutes away from that,” Turner said. “The guys up in Covington may be 10 or 15 minutes away, so we can get there faster than they can. If something happens up in Newport, they’re going to beat us there. So, if it’s something major that happens, we’ll go ahead and head that way. We don’t draw our county lines in any dark color.”
Regional responsibilities
One cannot talk about Northern Kentucky’s regional efforts without mentioning the recent public safety communication system upgrade. The project not only replaced old equipment with new technology, it also drastically improved the speed and ability of communication between first responders across all disciplines and counties in the area.
The region also supports specialized teams that work together across Northern Kentucky. Boone County Water Rescue is housed within the Boone County emergency management office but serves all the Northern Kentucky counties. The team of trained divers has additional training in water search and recovery.
The Northern Kentucky Technical Rescue Team is trained for special search-and-rescue missions, including building collapse, confined space, trenches, heavy vehicle extraction, high- and low-angle rope rescue, large animal rescue, swift-water rescue and missing persons searches.
The Campbell County LandSAR team is a group of trained volunteer search-and-rescue professionals that assist in search-and-rescue operations. They are available upon request throughout the region and state.
The Northern Kentucky Emergency Planning Committee works on planning for chemical-related emergencies, preparing for spills of all kinds, including hazardous materials.
Both Boone and Kenton counties also run training programs for Community Emergency Response Teams. Citizen volunteers train in emergency preparedness on the neighborhood level. They can assist professional responders in disaster situations. While no prior education in emergency management is needed, the training is intense and requires a time commitment for both initial training and follow-up training.
Emergency management in Northern Kentucky
What do county, and for that matter state and national, emergency management departments do? The short answer is: They plan, they prepare and they respond. Then, they evaluate and plan some more. Listing out all the responsibilities that fall to these departments is a tall order.
Emergency management personnel respond to floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters, but they also respond to reports of missing children and adults. They respond to highway crashes and spills. They also often have the responsibility of pulling vehicles and bodies out of the river. They provide support in high winds, freezing temperatures and intense heat waves.
Weather is only one factor. These departments also plan and respond to man-made emergencies, such as last year’s bomb threats on the Roebling Suspension Bridge or the workers trapped under the collapsed mine operation in Martin County. Active shooters have become an increasing threat.
Departments work closely with first responders, elected officials and local administrators. They work with practically anyone who has any responsibilities in dealing with disasters – hospitals, transportation officials, public health personnel, schools, social service agencies, housing and food support organizations, volunteer groups, businesses and economic development groups.
Staff is actually quite small at county emergency management offices. Each is led by a director and one or two full-time deputies and a handful of part-time personnel. Budgets are tight. This is one reason the counties rely so heavily on each other, said Turner.
On a day-to-day basis, the staff works on the county’s many emergency operations plans, overall plans and specific plans for different types of emergencies and conditions. They review and update those plans and meet regularly with all stakeholders.
“In Boone County, we call ours the Disaster and Emergency Services Group — a multidisciplinary meeting of all of the partners that make up our comprehensive emergency management program. The best way to describe it is: If somebody has a role in an emergency and disaster response, they have a seat at the table,” said Mark Ihrig, director of the Boone County Emergency Management Department. “There are meetings at the county level and at the larger city level. And, there certainly are regional meetings. Some are for single disciplines like the fire service; some are multidisciplinary.”
Getting the word out
Weather emergencies start with an alert from a federal agency charged with monitoring weather patterns. For tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail and high winds, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, provides alerts called “watches,” when conditions seem favorable for tornadic or storm activity. They monitor the situation and, if a tornado is spotted, the watch becomes a “warning.”
For floods, the National Weather Service local office in Wilmington, Ohio, monitors the situation in 12 Kentucky counties. The three big Northern Kentucky counties participate in the federal StormReady program, designed to promote community preparedness.
The weather service issues forecasts, watches and warnings for flash floods and river floods. When it looks like the river is nearing flood level stage at 52 feet, the service keeps a careful eye. Once the river hits 56 feet, it can cause backwater flooding into creeks and streams. A flood warning can trigger the closing of flood gates and activation of pumping stations.
While the weather service monitors and issues the alerts, flood protection operations are the responsibility of several local, state and national agencies. The flood gauge, located near the Roebling Suspension Bridge, is owned and operated through a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.
Kentucky’s Sewer District 1, known locally as SD1, handles the 15 flood water pumps located along the river. SD1 has a system of triggers to activate different pumps in different locations depending on river levels. The municipalities are in charge of closing their flood gates.
The National Weather Service is in constant contact with the county emergency management departments. Hydrologist/meteorologist Julia Dian-Reed outlined how the process unfolds. Dian-Reed works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“When we issue a watch, we also provide briefings to our county emergency management agency, and they share that information among their municipalities and anybody involved in decision-making,” Dian-Reed said. “The county central dispatch has multiple means of receiving those watches.”
The service also shares the information with local weather stations, on social media and on its website. Citizens can sign up for alerts on their phones, and weather radios are relatively inexpensive and available.
“So what we’re saying is … the conditions are favorable, the ingredients are there,” Dian-Reed said. “And then when the decision is made to issue a flood warning, the flooding is imminent or already occurring. … The information is pushed out through multiple means to make sure that it gets as wide of a distribution as possible.”
The first notice from the weather service might come as an email alert that conditions are favorable, Ihrig said. As the risk rises, officials may receive a phone call briefing. The office will then provide a briefing to public safety officials and city administrators. The next step may be a conference call. As things ramp up, the office will start to make decisions on locating and preparing personnel to respond.
Incident management teams
Perhaps the most important extension of the county emergency offices is the Northern Kentucky Incident Management Team. The team includes 55 specially trained individuals. They help in local emergencies but, when needed, the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management may request a team to be deployed to disasters across the state.
Depending on the needs, a team can include a variety of professionals in addition to first responders. In recent deployments, explained Turner, he’s sent animal care experts, engineers, a housing expert and even an economic development director.
Attention to detail and the ability to think ahead is key. Turner said there’s no substitute for experience. He’s been on the job for 37 years and has learned what it takes to be fully prepared. His department has two truck trailers loaded with shelter supplies, one with special needs equipment such as walkers, wheelchairs and special cots. The department can bring another trailer that is full of cages for displaced pets.
The deployments can last several days or weeks and usually involve 10 to 20 people. Northern Kentucky incident management teams were deployed to help with both the tornadoes in western Kentucky and the floods in the eastern part of the state. The federal government offers specialized training for the teams in what is known as the National Incident Management system.
In the field
Greg Buckler is one of two deputy directors at the Campbell County Emergency Management Office. He started his career in 1979 as a firefighter, worked in law enforcement and then served as the county’s jailer for 14 years before joining emergency management. He led incident management teams to both western and eastern Kentucky. He said the deployments start with a request through the state emergency management department.
“When you have a major disaster, no single agency or county can handle it on their own,” Buckler said. “We found that out in Western Kentucky when we went down to Mayfield for the tornadoes. There were eight of us who went down. … The tornado came through on a Friday night, Saturday morning. We went down on Monday. And there were four other people from the state already down there. They were overwhelmed.”
“We weren’t there 15 minutes, and we were working,” he said. “We were assigned to the EOC, the Emergency Operations Center. The EOC gets the needed resources for the people in the field. So if they needed search teams, it was up to us to find a search team. If they needed lighting to continue their search at night, it was up to us to find the generators for that,” he said.
His team would receive requests for personnel, equipment or supplies from the local first responders and others in the field and relay the request to the state emergency management office. The state would then accept or deny the request or ask for additional information. Once the request was granted, Buckler’s team would go about securing whatever was needed.
It was up to the team to locate personnel and equipment. They would find housing and whatever else was needed. They secured generators for lights at night but also had to set up a system to fuel the generators. Since all the road signs were wiped out, the crew put temporary signs on the corners so people could find their way. Anything that was needed, the crew secured and managed.
The team members had to think of every detail and think ahead, always preparing for the next 12-hour shift, Buckler said.
Ending locally
Hensley explained the chain leading to increased levels of support.
Local police and fire service departments at the city or town level are first on the scene, but if they need help, they reach out to their county emergency management office. The county steps in first and may reach out to nearby counties for help. Then, the state may get involved, he said.
If a disaster affects much of the state, the governor may request a presidential declaration. That declaration brings help from the National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or other agencies. It also triggers federal reimbursement programs, badly needed for the recovery phase.
While state and federal attention may continue for some time, recovery and rebuilding comes back to the counties and municipalities directly involved.
“All emergencies start locally and end locally,” Hensley said.
Some tips for being prepared
In a large-scale disaster, you may be on your own for a while. It’s a good idea to protect yourself and loved ones with a little preparation.
—Talk to your family about what they might do in an emergency. Where will the family meet if they get separated? Does someone in your home know how to use a fire extinguisher?
—Practice a fire or emergency drill.
—Sign up for alerts on your phone. Campbell County uses the Smart911 app. Boone and Kenton use an app called CodeRed Weather Warning.
—Prepare an emergency preparedness kit or kits. You can keep one at home, at your workplace and in your car.
—Have a NOAA weather radio on hand with batteries and/or a hand-powered crank.
—A good rule of thumb is to have the ability to sustain yourself for at least a few days without power. This includes water for every individual; food that can be prepared without power; medical supplies, especially if a person relies on a medication such as insulin; generator and fuel; first aid kit; batteries; flash light; blankets, manual can opener, etc.
—Put aside some emergency cash. If the power grid goes down, you may need cash to make purchases when you cannot access your bank.
— CPR training, and some AED training as well, may be available through your local fire or police department.
—For more, go to ready.gov/kit.
To get more involved
Boone and Kenton counties provide training to join their Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). Check their websites for information.
You can become a weather spotter. The National Weather Service offers both online training and in-person training at the Wilmington location. See the NWS Wilmington Spotter training page for more information. Online training is available nationally at weather.gov/SKYWARN.
