Post-snowstorm flood takes toys for needy as weather snarls Kentucky
Floodwaters ruined hundreds of toys wrapped and ready for delivery next Christmas season to needy children after a storm that dumped up to 2 feet of snow in some areas of Kentucky and trapped travelers on highways for nearly a day.
Flooding in the state’s Appalachian region appeared limited to areas near rivers that were already swollen by rain and snowmelt before the snowstorm walloped the state Wednesday evening and Thursday, state emergency officials said Friday.
In Harlan County, Jim “Muggins” Bennett said flooding from the nearby Cumberland River seeped into sheds where he stores toys for his long-running operation of delivering Christmas presents to children, the TriCity Empty Stocking Fund.
About half his stockpile for the next holiday season was ruined, he said.
“You want to sit down and cry a little bit,” the former coal miner, 74, said Friday. “But we don’t want to let this slow us down.”
Bennett and his wife, Naomi, have delivered toys and food boxes for area people for nearly 35 years. It’s grown to include about 3,000 toys and 600 food boxes each season. The Bennetts rely on donations, but they also buy gifts.
Bennett, who started the giveaways while laid off from the coal mines, said he and his wife are determined to make their full deliveries in December.
Elsewhere in the region, a handful of people were evacuated by boats from their homes Thursday because off river flooding in parts of Pike County, said Deputy County Judge-Executive Brian Morris.
The worst of the flooding in eastern Kentucky appeared to have ended, as rivers were receding or close to going down, said Tony Edwards, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Jackson.
“Right now, everything seems to be improving for the most part,” he said.
Meanwhile, temperatures plunged below zero early Friday, and ongoing wrecks had highway crews struggling to keep traffic flowing on interstates.
“Our road crews have been working in very difficult circumstances,” state Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock said.
Some motorists endured logjams lasting nearly 24 hours from Wednesday evening into Thursday along a stretch of Interstate 65 near Elizabethtown.
Travelers ran into more stops Friday on I-65, with the same cause: tractor-trailer rigs that crashed in the slick conditions, state highway officials said.
The traffic snarls were compounded by several factors. Heavy rains ahead of the snowstorm prevented crews from treating roads with salt or chemicals, said state Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe.
In addition, the Elizabethtown area was hit by some of the state’s heaviest snowfall, he said. More than 20 inches fell in the area.
“So keeping up with the snow with our plows was a major challenge to begin with,” Wolfe said. “It was quickly compounded by a rash of tractor-trailers jackknifing and blocking the entire roadway. Snow plows and other responders couldn’t get through.”
The storm presented travel problems elsewhere from the South to the Northeast this week.
In Tennessee, parts of which received up to 14 inches of sleet and snow, four people have died as a result of this week’s weather, all from motor-vehicle accidents, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said Friday.
On Thursday, a plane from Atlanta skidded off a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport while landing, crashing through a chain-link fence and coming to rest with its nose near the edge of an icy bay.
B oth of the airport’s runways are closed until further notice, which is standard procedure after such accidents. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said it is working with authorities to figure out what caused the crash.