Katie Myers

It's been a little more than five months since last summer's record flooding in eastern Kentucky. Residents continue to pick up the pieces as volunteer help dwindles and resources shift to other places.

People clutching folders full of paper flitted in and out of the FEMA disaster recovery center in Whitesburg, Kentucky last month. Some of them looked worried, or angry.Officials announced, without warning, that people rebuilding or repairing homes after the flood will have to apply for floodplain construction permits–complying with a 20-year-old ordinance that had not been actively enforced in the county.

The Bureau of Prisons has filed a new notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for a new federal prison in Letcher County, Ky.

More than 13,000 residents have applied for federal aid, but reconstruction will take months, officials say. There is no official count of how many people have been left homeless.

After record flooding at the end of July in eastern Kentucky, residents reported more than 10,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Many residents remain in housing limbo as they apply for aid and rebuild.

Knott County’s first responders are trying their best to get to people, but local fire departments are all-volunteer and work with small crews. The night of the flood, the volunteers of the Hindman fire department found themselves unable to access their station.

In the Parlor Room, a longtime tattoo shop and music venue in downtown Whitesburg, the art-covered walls meet a bare floor, covered in mud.

Andy Morell and his family watch layers of mud roll down into the storm gutter as a man power washes the residue left behind on their street in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

Eastern Kentuckians are living through one of the most devastating floods in state history.

Dwindling tax bases, aging populations and loss of industry have impacted many small towns across Kentucky. In March, the Kentucky Legislature passed a bill streamlining a solution for the town of Blackey and hundreds of other cities like it. To save the town, Blackey would have to voluntarily dissolve.