--- title: "Flooding displaces families and damages homes in eastern Kentucky" url: "https://bepreparedsolutions.co/reports/alert-pulse/ky-week-2026-09-21" description: "Every emergency alert sent across Kentucky in Sep 21 – 27, 2026, and what happened behind them. Figures for the week, with the data behind them." source: "BePrepared Solutions" --- [BePrepared](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/)[Alert Pulse](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/reports/alert-pulse) [Try freeFree 7\-day trial](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/trial?source=alert-pulse&utm_source=alert-pulse&utm_medium=report&utm_campaign=ky-week-2026-09-21&utm_content=masthead&returnTo=%2Freports%2Falert-pulse%2Fky-week-2026-09-21) Alert Pulse · Kentucky · Weekly report · Sep 21 – 27, 2026 # Flooding displaces families and damages homes in eastern Kentucky Harlan County residents needed overnight rescues as floodwater damaged homes, roads and water lines. Crews restored service while volunteers helped families clean up, and later flooding brought fresh warnings. - Flash flooding · Sep 23–24 Kentucky and West Virginia - Severe storms · Sep 21–22 Kentucky and West Virginia Gusts to 60 mph Named in the warnings: Grayson, Cannonsburg, Princess - Flash flooding · Sep 21–22 Kentucky Official warnings identified the danger, but keeping people safe also required door-to-door visits and water rescues, followed by repairs the messages could not deliver. [Read the week](#flooding-displaces-harlan-county-families) ## Flooding forces families from homes in Coxton, Brookside and Ages In Harlan County overnight into September 22, first responders rescued people from flooded homes, according to Judge-Executive Dan Mosley in Christopher Leach’s reporting for AOL. Residents had to leave homes in Coxton, Brookside and Ages (1 on the map), WATE reported in coverage republished by AOL. Earlier that afternoon, the weather service issued a severe-thunderstorm warning for Boyd County at 4:57 p.m. The severe-storm warnings continued into the night, with the last one ending in Bell County at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time. Those warnings describe the storm activity; the accounts of rescues and damage come from reporting on the ground. During the overnight Harlan County flood, responders went door to door to alert residents to the approaching danger, Mosley told KET’s Kentucky Edition. WATE reported that people left their homes after a flash-flood warning was issued for the affected communities. The water extensively damaged homes, vehicles, roads, bridges, culverts and water lines in Coxton, Brookside and Ages, according to Mosley’s account carried by WATE. He told KET that water entered homes and basements, mud and debris accumulated in yards, and rocks tumbled down a mountainside into a home. No deaths or injuries were reported in the sources reviewed for this flood. Speaking to KET on September 22, Mosley said: "We're just thankful that there was no loss of life." His office had already connected some residents with assistance that day, KET reported. ## Water service returns to homes in Ages and Brookside In Harlan County after the overnight flood, Kentucky American Water crews and contractors restored water service to approximately 200 homes within 50 hours, Underground Infrastructure reported. The work repaired damage to Black Mountain Utility District infrastructure while families faced the cleanup of flooded homes. This was recovery from the same flood, not a separate disaster. Flash-flood warnings began in Pike County on September 21; that night, a Harlan County warning classified the potential damage as considerable. The flood-warning area is marked 2 on the map. Floodwater had ripped water lines from the ground in Ages and Brookside. In its September 25 report, Underground Infrastructure described crews replacing damaged mains and service lines while Kentucky American Water supplied bottled water. Restoring service addressed an immediate household need, but it did not remove the mud and debris left behind. By September 23, all Harlan County roads were back open, Mosley said in WYMT’s reporting. Volunteers delivered cleaning supplies to distribution sites, including Ages Community Park, and Subway provided sandwiches for people cleaning flooded homes. No deaths or injuries were reported in the sources reviewed for this flood. As far as the record shows, no one was hurt, but Sean Daniels of Harlan Mission Outreach told WYMT on September 23: "they have a long road ahead of them to clean up, so they need a lot of prayer". ## Floodwaters recede in Leslie County as nearby flooding persists In Bell County at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on September 23, the weather service issued a flash-flood warning that also covered neighboring counties. Cedar News reported that the notice described flooding as ongoing or expected shortly. This was a later episode, distinct from the overnight flood that had displaced Harlan County families earlier in the week. That evening, south-central Harlan County came under a flash-flood warning at 10:01 p.m. The weather service named Martins Fork, Smith and Bobs Creek among the locations covered, according to the notice archived by Claims Pages. This later flooding area is marked 3 on the map. In part of Leslie County, conditions had improved by 10:16 p.m. The weather service announced that a flood advisory had expired and that floodwaters had receded, according to its notice archived by Iowa Environmental Mesonet. It still advised people to observe remaining road closures, without identifying individual roads. Nearby, the picture remained different. At 11:03 p.m., the weather service extended a flash-flood warning for northeastern Bell County, west-central Harlan County and southwestern Leslie County until 12:15 a.m. the next morning. The notice, archived by Claims Pages, said flooding impacts would continue even though no additional rainfall was expected. The last flash-flood warning in this episode ended in Harlan County at 12:56 a.m. Eastern time on September 24. These notices did not document additional damage or rescues. No deaths or injuries were reported in the sources reviewed for this later episode. ## How BePrepared monitors this, all year This report exists because we already monitor the whole country. Every couple of minutes, around the clock, we read the emergency alerts going out across all fifty states and territories, and we keep them. A month of that record is what you have just read. The national picture is the part most people never see. What matters to you is much smaller: which of these warnings would have reached your street, and what the risks around you look like on an ordinary day. That is what BePrepared is for. Put in your ZIP code and you get the picture for where you live — the flood, fire and storm history around you, the dams and facilities nearby, and a plan for your household rather than a general one. With a free account you can keep a watchlist of the places you care about, like your home, your parents' address, and your kids' school, and set what you want to hear about. ## Where it hit hardest Counted as distinct warnings, and as the days a county spent under one. A county is the smallest area these warnings describe. ### Warnings by state - Kentucky30 - West Virginia3 ### Most days under a warning - Harlan County, KY3 days Harlan County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 22, Sep 23, Sep 24 - Bell County, KY3 days Bell County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 22, Sep 23, Sep 24 - Leslie County, KY3 days Leslie County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 22, Sep 23, Sep 24 - Knox County, KY3 days Knox County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 22, Sep 23, Sep 24 - Lawrence County, KY2 days Lawrence County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 21, Sep 23 - Wayne County, WV2 days Wayne County, WV was under a warning on: Sep 21, Sep 23 - Letcher County, KY2 days Letcher County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 23, Sep 24 - Clay County, KY2 days Clay County, KY was under a warning on: Sep 23, Sep 24 Figure 03[Embed this chart](#use-these-figures) ### Where the warnings landed Every county in Kentucky that received a warning this week, coloured and scaled by how many; the faint dots are counties this edition does not cover.102 counties in Kentucky received at least one warning; the faint dots are every other county in the country, which this edition does not cover. Each county wears its MOST frequent kind of warning and its dot scales with how many it received; the month's three biggest kinds carry color and every other kind wears gray, with the panels below giving each kind its own map. The full per-county mix is in the CSV. Too few counties to panel: tornadoes (2). - Flooding - Severe storms - Tornadoes - Everything else Flooding303 warnings · 37 counties Severe storms60 warnings · 20 counties View as a table | County | State | Warnings | Most frequent kind | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Harlan | KY | 57 | Flooding | | Bell | KY | 37 | Flooding | | Leslie | KY | 30 | Flooding | | Pike | KY | 27 | Flooding | | Letcher | KY | 26 | Flooding | | Knox | KY | 26 | Flooding | | Clay | KY | 26 | Flooding | | Whitley | KY | 23 | Flooding | | Perry | KY | 23 | Flooding | | Laurel | KY | 19 | Everything else | | Martin | KY | 19 | Flooding | | Lawrence | KY | 18 | Flooding | | Knott | KY | 16 | Flooding | | Johnson | KY | 14 | Everything else | | Pulaski | KY | 14 | Everything else | | McCreary | KY | 14 | Everything else | | Wayne | WV | 13 | Flooding | | Floyd | KY | 12 | Everything else | | Breathitt | KY | 11 | Everything else | | Magoffin | KY | 10 | Everything else | ## What it cost No documented outcome figures were available for this period at the time of publication. This report therefore describes the warnings that went out, and makes no claim about deaths, damage or acreage. BePrepared ## 195 warnings reached Kentucky in Sep 21 – 27, 2026. See which reach your street. We read the emergency alerts going out across Kentucky and the rest of the country, around the clock. That is where this report comes from. Enter your ZIP and get the version that matters to you: the flood, fire and storm history around your address, what sits nearby, and a plan built for your household. [Start your free 7-day trial](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/trial?source=alert-pulse&utm_source=alert-pulse&utm_medium=report&utm_campaign=ky-week-2026-09-21&utm_content=card&returnTo=%2Freports%2Falert-pulse%2Fky-week-2026-09-21) No card. It ends on its own. [Or just look up your ZIP](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/zip) The numbers behind this report Every warning counted once, by type, place, day and hour, with the method below and the whole table downloadable at the end of the page. Distinct warnings 195 carried by 195 messages (1× echo) Counties reached 102 across 2 states and territories Overnight 59 10pm–6am local · 0 of the most severe Effective on arrival 100% take effect the moment they are sent ### What was warned about | Alert type | Warnings | Messages | | --- | --- | --- | | Flash Flood Warning | 63 | 63 | | Special Weather Statement | 54 | 54 | | Flood Advisory | 44 | 44 | | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | 25 | 25 | | Flood Watch | 8 | 8 | | Tornado Warning | 1 | 1 | ### Where | State | Warnings | | --- | --- | | KY | 194 | | IN | 1 | The busiest hour of the period was 6pm local time, with 27 warnings. ### Counties reached most often | County | State | Warnings | | --- | --- | --- | | Harlan | KY | 57 | | Bell | KY | 37 | | Leslie | KY | 30 | | Pike | KY | 27 | | Letcher | KY | 26 | | Knox | KY | 26 | | Clay | KY | 26 | | Whitley | KY | 23 | | Perry | KY | 23 | | Laurel | KY | 19 | A county with no alerts is not a county with no risk. It can mean a quiet period, or a hazard that this feed does not carry. Figure 04[Embed this chart](#use-these-figures) ### When the warnings arrived Distinct warnings by the local hour they were sent, across the whole period.Local time in the place each alert was sent to. 59 arrived between 10pm and 6am, 0 of them at the highest severity. View as a table | Local hour | Warnings | Of which most severe | | --- | --- | --- | | 12am | 11 | 0 | | 1am | 6 | 0 | | 2am | 9 | 0 | | 3am | 2 | 0 | | 4am | 4 | 0 | | 5am | 2 | 0 | | 6am | 1 | 0 | | 7am | 0 | 0 | | 8am | 0 | 0 | | 9am | 0 | 0 | | 10am | 0 | 0 | | 11am | 2 | 0 | | 12pm | 0 | 0 | | 1pm | 0 | 0 | | 2pm | 2 | 0 | | 3pm | 11 | 0 | | 4pm | 16 | 0 | | 5pm | 20 | 1 | | 6pm | 27 | 0 | | 7pm | 19 | 0 | | 8pm | 16 | 0 | | 9pm | 22 | 0 | | 10pm | 13 | 0 | | 11pm | 12 | 0 | Figure 05[Embed this chart](#use-these-figures) ### The feed repeats itself How many messages the feed carried, how many distinct warnings they represent, and how many counties those reached.An echo rate of 1× — for every warning issued, 1 messages carried it. Reporting messages as warnings would overstate this week by 0. View as a table | Stage | Count | | --- | --- | | Messages received | 195 | | Of which updates | 80 | | Of which cancels | 0 | | Distinct warnings | 195 | | Counties reached | 102 | Figure 06[Embed this chart](#use-these-figures) ### How severe they were Distinct warnings by the severity the issuing agency assigned. - Minor - Moderate - Severe - Extreme View as a table | Severity | Warnings | | --- | --- | | Minor | 44 | | Moderate | 54 | | Severe | 96 | | Extreme | 1 | Figure 07[Embed this chart](#use-these-figures) ### What people were told to do The share of warnings carrying each instruction to the public.These are response counts. They record the instruction an alert carried, not the hazard behind it. - Avoid - Follow instructions - Shelter - Everything else Where those instructions came from - Shelter (26) — 14 corroborated as flood, 12 with no hazard stated in the alert text View as a table | Response | Warnings | Share | | --- | --- | --- | | Avoid | 107 | 54.9% | | Follow instructions | 54 | 27.7% | | Shelter | 26 | 13.3% | | Prepare | 8 | 4.1% | ### What this report cannot tell you - This report records the warnings that were sent: when, where, and what people were told to do. It cannot say whether anyone received them, whether they acted, or whether they had anywhere to go. - Deaths, injuries, damage and acreage come from the news organizations and agencies named beside each figure. Our own records measure warnings, never outcomes, and are never the source for a toll. - A county is the smallest area these alerts describe, so "a county was warned" does not mean every street in it was at risk. - Where no figure has been reported, this report says so rather than estimating. ## How these numbers were counted Counted SEP 21, 2026 – SEP 28, 2026 · Frozen at publish The alert figures in this report — how many warnings, where, when, and how severe — come from the alerts this archive received from FEMA IPAWS and the National Weather Service between September 21, 2026 and September 28, 2026, counted once and frozen when the report was published. Deaths, damage and acreage are **not** ours and are never drawn from this archive. Each is attributed to the organization that reported it, above. ### What was counted - Only alerts covering at least one county in Kentucky. An alert warning several states is counted in each of them, so state editions do not sum to the national total. - cap\_status = 'Actual' (tests, exercises and demos excluded) - SAME test codes RWT/RMT/DMO/NPT/NAT excluded, and any event type containing "test" - An event is the first message of a CAP identifier chain; updates and cancels are counted separately - Alert time is cap\_sent, falling back to ingest time when the feed omits it - Counties come from the alert geocodes (SAME/FIPS); statewide codes are not counted as counties ### What these numbers cannot tell you - Lead time is the gap between when an alert was sent and when it takes effect. This archive collapses CAP onset into effective, so for many products those are the same instant by design — it is not a measure of forecast warning time. - 0 alerts expire exactly 24 hours after they were sent because the feed omitted an expiry and the ingest substitutes a default. They are excluded from the duration distribution rather than charted as real forecasts. - Evacuation and shelter figures are RESPONSE counts. They record what people were told to do, not what caused it; where the alert text does not name a hazard, the row is reported as unstated. - Hour-of-day figures use each alert’s own local time, resolved from its state. Alerts spanning several states resolve to the first state in their geocodes. - National Weather Service alerts began arriving in volume on 2026-06-12. Earlier months hold only the handful that reached this archive by other routes, so they undercount weather alerts badly and cannot be compared with later months. - Population figures are not available for these counties, so alert counts are reported per county and never per resident. ### This archive Collection began 2026-03-27. National Weather Service alerts began arriving in volume on 2026-06-12 (a small number reached the archive by other routes from 2026-03-31). Months from 2026-07-01 onward can be compared with each other; earlier ones cannot. For newsrooms and researchers ## Use these figures Figures v1 · Frozen Journalists, emergency managers and researchers are welcome to reuse anything in this report, including the underlying counts, with attribution. Version 1 of these figures is frozen: if a correction changes them, it appears above as a dated note rather than silently replacing what you cited. [Download the figures (CSV)](https://bepreparedsolutions.co/reports/alert-pulse/ky-week-2026-09-21/data.csv?v=1)[Ask about the data](mailto:hello@bepreparedsolutions.co?subject=Alert%20Pulse%20data%20question) Cite this report BePreparedSolutions.co. "Flooding displaces families and damages homes in eastern Kentucky." Alert Pulse, October 1, 2026. https://bepreparedsolutions.co/reports/alert-pulse/ky-week-2026-09-21 Attribution line for a chart or table Source: BePrepared Solutions, Alert Pulse (2026). Alert counts from FEMA IPAWS and National Weather Service feeds; casualty and damage figures as attributed in the report. Embed a chartWhere the warnings landedWhen the warnings arrivedMessages, warnings, countiesHow severe they wereWhat people were told to do Paste this where the chart should appear The embed updates itself if we publish a correction, so it never goes stale the way a screenshot does. The CSV carries the same frozen figures as this page, keyed to version 1. --- _Guidance here is general and cannot account for your circumstances. In an active emergency, official instructions from local authorities take precedence over anything published by BePrepared Solutions._