BY JOSHUA BALL

There’s a moment when the world, a region, stands still.

When the rain won’t stop. When the rivers swell, creeping higher and higher until they are no longer rivers at all… but walls of water, tearing through everything in their path.

Homes, memories, lifetimes… gone in an instant.

And then comes the silence.

The roads that once led home are unrecognizable, buried under mud and debris. The places where laughter once echoed… schools, churches, small businesses, front porches, now stand hollow and broken. A child clutches a mud-covered teddy bear. An elderly man stares at what’s left of his home, now just scattered pieces of a life built over decades. A mother, standing in the wreckage, wondering how she will start again.

Disaster does not ask permission. It does not choose favorites. It takes, without reason, without mercy.

But here, in the heart of Eastern Kentucky, the story does not end in the wreckage.

Because when the waters rise, so do the people.

This land has never been easy to live on… steep hills, winding roads, deep valleys carved out by time itself.

But the people here? They were made for this. Not because they chose it. Not because they welcome hardship. But because time and time again, they have had no other choice.

Strength is not something learned, it is something lived. It is forged in the struggles no one should have to face, carried in their hearts, in their hands, in their unshakable will to stand when everything else falls.

And so, they show up.

With hands that dig through the mud, searching for what can be salvaged. With arms that embrace, offering comfort where words fall short. With voices that do not say, “What do we do?” but rather, “Where do we start?”

Because recovery is not just about rebuilding homes; it’s about restoring hope. It’s about lifting up neighbors, serving strangers as if they were family, and giving not just what we have but who we are.

Eastern Kentucky will rise. It will recover. It will rebuild.

But the people here are tired. Worn thin by storms that come too often, by floods that were once a century apart but now feel like an annual reckoning. We have lost so much, not just homes and businesses but history, memories, and pieces of who we are.

And yet, with every loss has come something deeper. A stronger sense of community. A belonging that cannot be washed away.

We will rebuild yet again because that is what we do. But the enduring hope is that one day, we won’t just rebuild; we will create a future where our children do not have to start over but instead build upon something lasting.

A future where rising waters no longer threaten to take what we love. A future where resilience is no longer our burden but truly our strength.

And until that day comes, we will stand together, holler to holler, neighbor to neighbor, lifting each other up again and again.

Because this is home.

And home is worth everything.

Joshua Ball is the Chief Operating Officer at Shaping Our Appalachian Region Inc.