'Until you go through it, there's really no way to describe it.' McLean County sees worst flood in 75 years

It’s well-documented that eastern Kentucky has seen some horrible, tragic flooding that has displaced people and ruined livelihoods, but unfortunately, it isn’t just that part of the state that’s dealing with that sort of thing. The western part of the state, and specifically, McLean County, is the latest victim of historic and catastrophic flooding.

The Green River, which runs right through the middle of McLean County, reached a peak crest of 35.75 feet — the fourth-highest crest on record and the highest since 1950. For reference, the Green River reaches “Flood” status when it crests at 23 feet.

Take a peek at what the flooding looked like for yourself:

KSR was in McLean County to speak to numerous folks around the situation, and there’s perhaps no one who has been more in the middle of it all than judge executive Curtis Dame.

Dame recalled floods in 1997 and 2011 that were pretty bad when trying to describe how bad this flood has been for McLean County, but this one has been in a league of its own.

“I’ve personally been through two historic floods — 1997 and 2011, but the flood that we’ll refer back to is ‘The Flood of 2025’ years from now,” he noted. “It’s been in a category all on its own — a category that we haven’t seen since 1950, approximately 75 years ago. It put about 49% of the county under water.”

“Until you go through it, there’s really no way to describe it,” Dame added. “Each flood and high-water event is totally different, and that’s because rain never falls the same way twice.”

Several hundred people have been displaced by the flooding, and just as many properties have been destroyed. According to Dame, it’s “at least 300 houses” that have been directly damaged by the flooding in McLean County.

“That’s the big hurdle for me, is seeing the impact, the amount of personal property damage. We’ve estimated as low as 200 residences and as high as 400. That number will be accurate once the individual review teams have done their work.”

A lot of those folks are in shelters that are being operated by Red Cross. There’s been “as high as 90 [people at the shelters] at any given time to as low as 30”. A number of things have been organized in order to help out in a time of need. The McLean County Chamber of Commerce, for example, has used an old and empty grocery store building to collect items of need for people.

If you’d like to consider donating some items of need, Chamber of Commerce President Sharon Walker told KSR what is needed at this moment in time.

“Right now, we need the push brooms and we need squeegees,” she said. “We need to see if we can get more shovels, rakes. We need to have, of course, more water, bleach. Dish detergent, laundry detergent, diapers. We don’t have a lot of diapers available to us at this time.”

Of course, in a time like this, safety is at the forefront when it comes to priorities. However, a return to “normalcy” is also something that is being discussed. Kids returned to school on Wednesday for the first time since late March.

“It was before Spring Break,” McLean County High School principal Marc Searcy mentioned. “So, it was the last week of March. We haven’t been at school at all in April. I think we were in school seven days in February.”

McLean County Public Schools Superintendent Tommy Burrough has been the head man as far as decision-making goes during this whole process. The flooding that McLean County is experiencing is something like we’ve never seen before. It’s been a trying time for Burrough, to say the least.

“Everybody talked about the 1997 flood. It was number four all-time, but it was number one post lock and dams. I was here then, I was a teacher and head baseball coach here back then in ’97,” Burrough explained. “So, I remember that one, but this was a foot-and-a-half higher. This one was a different category of flood. I saw things I thought I’d never see. I live seven minutes from here — my office. It took me an hour to get here.”

With kids not being able to go to school, athletics had been halted as well. Surrounding counties and schools have offered to host baseball, softball and track so that McLean County can resume back to playing sports, but even then, Burrough has remained hesitant to get sports going again due to some of the effects of the flooding.

“My main thing, we had so many roads under water,” Burrough stated. “I can’t get a bus on the road until I know those roads are safe. It’s the safety of all kids. I feel for the athletics — I was a coach for many years, and I’m trying to get them back as fast as possible. I’m for all kids’ safety, not just certain ones.”

Burrough has heard and seen of some things firsthand that speak to just how serious the flooding really is.

“[I’ve seen] houses that are under water. I have an employee right here in my office that their house got 18 inches of water in it. It looks like a mud slide inside. I just got through talking to her, and they don’t know how long it’s going to be before they can get to it. Water’s still in the driveway. I remember KU, Kenergy — one of the electricals — when we had total darkness one night — I think it happened around 10:30 at night, and the power didn’t come back on until 2. They were having to use boats for the electrical workers to work on the power.”

The flooding has directly impacted the baseball, softball and track seasons. However, it’s also time for spring ball for the football program, and head coach Zach Wagner spoke to KSR about what it has been like to have that put to an abrupt pause.

“I think our program’s been established long enough, stayed in contact with our guys, fingers crossed and hope that they’re lifting and working and doing things as far as football goes and strength and conditioning,” Wagner said.

“Our biggest thing was calling and checking on our guys — if they needed help moving out, if they needed food or anything with the flood, we wanted to get that to them. That was first priority.”

Fortunately for the football program, they have a whole summer to get through before it’s game time. The same can’t be said regarding spring sports. McLean County athletic director Justin Cook spoke to what it’s been like for him to experience the flooding in his role.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, so I’ve experienced numerous floods, but being in this position, it’s been difficult seeing our spring sports, just having to see them not get to have a full season,” Cook admitted to KSR. “While we’ve only had to lose a few games, it’s still been difficult just trying to navigate it.”

Most teams already have their schedules filled out, so trying to reschedule games and meets is a tall task this late in the year. There’s a lot of complicated and intricate work going on behind the scenes to try to make up some of those games.

“It’s easy to cancel games. A lot people maybe don’t see that,” Cook added. “With the games we lost, yes, it was tough on our kids, tough on parents, tough on the community, cancelling those games was ‘easy’ from the standpoint of ‘Hey, we can’t come play today’. Now that we’re kind of getting back into it, now the difficult part really kind of gets started trying to get some of these games back because we’re limited on days.”

He also noted the significant amounts of damage that has happened to the baseball and softball fields. While the water has receded some, the effects remain immense.

“Baseball a little more [damage] than softball. Baseball, up until a couple of days ago, was under water for almost 12 days is what we figured up. It was under water for 12 days. The grass, obviously, is dead. Now, you’re talking about the field, not necessarily the dirt, but the grass itself, is basically like walking in a river how the second you put your in a river, you start to sink. If you tried to play in a baseball game out there right now, the poor outfielder wouldn’t have a chance to do anything because you just can’t get any footing. You just sink in the ground.”

Head baseball coach Darren Lynam declined to comment regarding the flooding’s impact on his program, but head softball coach Rileigh Bobo talked with KSR about what this experience has been like for the Lady Cougars.

“It has kind of sucked a little bit knowing how much the girls put in, offseason, in-season,” Bobo said. “It sucks because the girls aren’t able to do anything, and they’re seeing everybody else being able to play, and they’re not. At least we’re still here, and we’re in the right path of being able to move forward.”

When you think about the seniors on the team, the situation sucks all the more.

“I think some of them are seeing that it’s their last season, especially our seniors. Some of them are not going to college to play, so this is their last chance to play the game that they’ve played since they were three. I keep trying to tell them to stay on the positive side. At least we’re getting to play, unlike the 2020 seniors who didn’t get to play a season at all. We are playing, we are moving forward. We just had to postpone a few things for a couple weeks.”

Seth Lancaster, who helps coach the track and field team at McLean County, also spoke to what his program is going through due to the flooding.

“It’s been difficult because we took the week off of Spring Break, and that’s when the storms came and everything. So, we had the expectation that were we going to have the week off. That turned into two, now it’s turning into three. We’ve only got to have one meet. So, we’ve had to cancel three meets already, and this is kind of the heart of track season. It’s just been tough not being able to have everybody together.”

You can donate to the McLean County Chamber of Commerce’s flood relief fund using the link below. If you contribute via check, make the check payable to “McLean County Chamber” with “Flood Relief” as the memo.

Additionally, you can watch the video accompanying this article by clicking on the link below.

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