Jared Bennett (2:53)

Welcome to Dirty Business from Louisville Public Media, I'm Jared Bennett with the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting.

Justin Hicks (2:59)

And I'm Justin Hicks, data reporter for Louisville Public media. It was July 2022, and eastern Kentucky was soggy. There'd been two days straight of spotty thunderstorms and the creeks and streams that defined the hollers here were swollen. And after most people went to sleep on July 27, a round of thunderstorms rolled through that would forever change the region. WYMT in Hazard, Kentucky broke into its regular programming with an important message.

Jared Bennett (3:30)

All right, just after one o' clock and we're on the air and on Facebook.

Justin Hicks (3:34)

Flash flood emergency is in effect until 4:30. Catastrophic damage possible. Over a five day period, more than a foot of rain fell. The National Weather Service would later say the odds of that much rain in that short of a time were less than 1 in 1,000. First responders and volunteers performed over 600 water rescues. Brandon Robinson with WYMT stayed on air all night.

Jared Bennett (4:00)

They can't get crews out fast enough to rescue people out of homes. There's so many water rescues ongoing right now that they're having to call out neighboring departments for help. Mudslides, power outages. I mean, there's just so much going on.

Justin Hicks (4:16)

So, Jared, as reporters, you and I heard all sorts of stories about that night, but one stood out. Tell us about this couple, Don and Melissa Young.

Jared Bennett (4:24)

Don and Melissa were asleep when the flooding started. Don is a retired former police officer and Melissa is a schoolteacher. Their home sat right on the edge of a Creek in McRoberts. By early morning, they knew they were in big trouble.

Don Young (4:40)

Water was already in our double wagon. I was standing in our door and I told her, I said, it keeps coming. I said, we're going to have to go.

Jared Bennett (4:48)

At that moment, Don saw something out the window. It was an entire mobile home careening towards them on the water.

Don Young (4:54)

Just like somebody was driving. It turned and hit ours and knocked us off our foundation. But when it hit, I told her, I said, it's time to go. My porch broke loose.

Jared Bennett (5:04)

The mobile home crashed through their bedroom wall. Don says there was no time to think, just act. He jumped on his porch, grabbed the banisters and started floating on the wooden porch like a raft. Melissa grabbed their dogs and leapt into the water.

Don Young (5:19)

She jumped out with them, two little dogs in her arm and Swum to that tree right there and she went underwater three times. I thought she was gonna drown.

Jared Bennett (5:28)

Melissa clung to that tree for dear life. Don held onto a post nearby. And that's how they stayed for hours until the water receded enough for them to be rescued by relatives. Across 20 counties, ankle deep creeks turned into raging rivers like this in a matter of hours. When the rain stopped and morning finally came, entire towns were underwater. 45 people died, trapped in their homes, in cars, or carried away by the water. Debris covered eastern Kentucky. Houses, barns and trees were dropped in the middle of streams and roads. One county search and rescue vehicle was wrapped around a sycamore tree on the banks of the north fork of the Kentucky River. For weeks afterwards, people found mud covered family photos miles away. The floods left massive piles of sediment, rocks and dirt scoured from the mountainsides and deposited downstream. Debris left behind by floods is more than just an eyesore. It clogs up creeks and streams. The water has no place to go, so next time it rains, it ends up flooding again, maybe flooding even worse. During cleanup, the very definition of what is and isn't debris can become contentious. A family's home might be considered debris, even if they think it can be salvaged. Trees that are still standing tall might meet the government's definition of debris. And for disaster recovery companies, debris represents millions of dollars to be made in government contract. All told, the Army Corps of engineers estimated nearly 2 million cubic yards of debris, most of it in the streams and creek beds.

Justin Hicks (7:19)

Data reporter chiming in here. I crunched the numbers and that's enough to fill up the inside of Churchill Down's racetrack, where the Kentucky derbies run up to 26ft high. Before anyone could even think about rebuilding all the debris needed picking up. Flood recovery of this magnitude is a big job, usually much bigger than states or local governments can handle on their own. So about a week after the flood, Kentucky brought in the big guns. They hired the biggest debris removal company in the game, Florida based Ash Britt Incorporated. Kentucky governor Andy Beshear made this announcement during a live streamed public update on August 4th.

Jared Bennett (8:00)

Debris removal, this is a big step. According to the Transportation Cabinet, the contract for debris removal has been awarded to Ashprint. That is a company that will also have subcontractors all across the region. Kickoff meeting will be held today.

Justin Hicks (8:15)

People saw a flurry of activity. Hotels full of cleanup workers from out of town and big trucks full of debris on winding mountain roads.

Jared Bennett (8:24)

Once this gets fully ramped up, you will see debris removed at a rapid pace.

Justin Hicks (8:29)

It looked like progress, like the first step towards returning to a new normal, whatever that looked like. And people started feeling hopeful. While contractors got the debris out of public areas like roads, people who survived the floods were busy gutting their houses or salvaging what they could. That included Don and Melissa Young. In December, they took us to their house in McRoberts, Kentucky. At least where it used to be before the flood.

Don Young (8:56)

Yeah, it's just up there, about three quarters of a mile.

Justin Hicks (9:00)

We wound around roads that followed the paths of creeks and had to avoid a few spots where the road had washed out completely until we finally got to McRoberts. It's an old coal mining community near the Virginia state line. The nearest town has a population of just a little more than 500 people. Like a lot of these mining towns, it's basically one street nestled into a valley that runs parallel to a creek. And in the full light of day, it's really beautiful. Green mountainsides as a backdrop nearly everywhere you look. But the sun disappears behind the peaks early, so it was already starting to get dark by about 4:30 when we pulled up to a little concrete pad sitting between the road and the creek.

Don Young (9:41)

Right here is our driveway. This was her mom's driveway.

Jared Bennett (9:46)

There was my brother's house and mom and Dad's and then ours.

Justin Hicks (9:50)

There's not much in the lot now, just a utility pole sticking out of a pile of dirt and rocks and all sorts of rubble. Melissa grew up here. It's the first time she's come since the demolition. She fidgets with her hands and seems lost in thought as she gazes over the property.

Justin Branham (10:08)

So we.

Jared Bennett (10:09)

I just. Just don't want to be here. It's just heartbreaking. And it's just to think that this is where I grew up at since I was five, since 1975. And then my house is right there and it's gone. We lived there since 94 and it's just everything's gone.

Justin Hicks (10:33)

Melissa says people keep asking her the same question.

Jared Bennett (10:36)

Everybody's asking, are you coming back?

Justin Hicks (10:38)

I'm like, no.

Jared Bennett (10:38)

That was my worst fear. I'd had nightmares that I'd get washed away.

Justin Hicks (10:43)

And we did. After the flood, their house was caked in mud and unlivable. They moved in with relatives just across the Virginia border. All they had were their clothes and the two little Yorkies. Melissa saved Izzy and Betsy in a borrowed car. They would make little trips back to the house to see what they could salvage.

Don Young (11:01)

We'd come over and. Cause I got back problems. I ain't supposed to lift nothing heavy or anything, but we'd come over two or three hours every other day or something, get what we could and put the tote and stack up.

Justin Hicks (11:12)

They started to count themselves lucky. As they searched, they found some priceless keepsakes had survived relatively undamaged. Things they couldn't have replaced.

Don Young (11:20)

My son won't wear jewelry. We bought him a class ring, you know, when he was in high school. She hunted for two weeks for his classroom. When she found it, she screamed and cried.

Justin Hicks (11:30)

It was in the bottom of a

Don Young (11:31)

drawer in the bathroom with mud all over it.

Justin Hicks (11:34)

What mattered most of them were things like relics from Don's career as a state police officer.

Don Young (11:39)

Baby videos, pictures, old toys from when

Justin Hicks (11:42)

their son Billy was a kid.

Don Young (11:44)

Every monster truck that he owned when

Justin Hicks (11:46)

he was a baby that they meant to pass on one day.

Don Young (11:48)

Stuff like that's priceless.

Justin Hicks (11:50)

They spent the next month carefully putting the keepsakes they found in plastic totes and stacking them in the house. Then one day they got a call from a neighbor.

Don Young (11:58)

He called her and said, you all need to get home. Said, they're turning your house down.

Justin Hicks (12:03)

They raced back to their home to find it partially destroyed. An excavator waited to demolish the rest. They didn't receive so much as a warning or an opportunity to take those mementos they'd saved. Before the excavator did its work, they

Don Young (12:16)

tore it all down. We could have had that. If they give us 20 minutes to get over here, it was worth. You wouldn't have took millions for it. And they just come in, destroyed it like it wasn't nothing, which it ain't to them.

Justin Hicks (12:29)

Don confronted the workers, and one of them said something that bothers him to this day.

Don Young (12:34)

She said the governor told them to tear down anything that they thought was in danger of causing a flood if it rained. I said, well, you picked the wrong house.

Justin Hicks (12:44)

Don made it his mission to find out who was responsible for all of this. The worker had said the governor authorized the demolition, so he called the governor's office.

Don Young (12:53)

They was nice as they could be.

Justin Hicks (12:55)

Internal emails show officials started looking into the young situation, but they were also concerned about optics. One email said Cruz needed better messaging. Instead of pinning the blame on the governor, Don says someone from the governor's office told him if he could find out what company tore things down, they would investigate it.

Don Young (13:13)

I said, I'll try to find them and get an ID tag or whatever.

Justin Hicks (13:17)

And as Don drove through town two weeks later, he saw that same worker he'd Confronted during his home demolition, sitting outside the junction drive in a local food spot.

Don Young (13:27)

I turned the car around, pulled in. I motioned her. She looked up. She got up and come over. And I said, can I have a picture of your ID tag? She said, what for? I said, the governor's office wants it. She turned white as a sheet.

Justin Hicks (13:41)

She was working for a company called Thompson Consulting Services that was hired to watch over crews and make sure everything fit FEMA guidelines. The Army Corps of Engineers had concerns about Thompson's monitors. Reports accused them of resting in cars with or not watching the work they were hired to supervise. We tried to talk to them. They referred us to the state. Don snapped a photo of the id.

Don Young (14:06)

Then she changed her tune. She said, well, you know, the Army Corps engineer told us to do it. I said, you told me the governor told you.

Justin Hicks (14:13)

Don sent that picture back to the governor's office, and after a while, he got a call from John Moore, one of the top officials in the state's transportation cabinet.

Don Young (14:23)

He called me and he said, we have been investigating. They know who tore it down and everything.

Justin Hicks (14:27)

The crew was working for Ash Britt. John Moore told Don to file a negligence claim with the Kentucky Board of Claims. The Youngs followed that advice and filed a claim in November. About six weeks later, they got a response. In it, a lawyer for the state said the damage to their home was the result of a catastrophic flood.

Don Young (14:48)

No wrongdoing, it was an act of God.

Justin Hicks (14:50)

And that the state didn't actually tear down the Young's home. It was a subcontractor who did that work. That's pretty much always the case. Ashpritt hires subcontractors to do the actual cleanup work while the company directs the action. And finally, the state's response, argued the Youngs themselves may have been negligent by leaving their property behind. By the way, Ashpritt eventually fired the company that tore the Youngs home down for allegedly not paying their workers. The subcontractor disagrees with that assessment. Now, the Board of Claims still hasn't decided the Young's case. The process gave Don a crash course in how disaster cleanup works. And one thing he learned, debris crews stand to make a lot of money.

Don Young (15:35)

I've been told that a lot of these companies get in these big trucks, get paid by tonnage.

Justin Hicks (15:40)

That's true. The more they remove, the more money they make. It's all part of a complex web of private contractors, government agencies, and billions of federal dollars funneled into disaster zones. According to federal investigators, the system is seriously flawed. It cost a lot of money and nobody seems to take responsibility for when things go wrong like they did for the Youngs. When we come back, we'll tell more about Ashbridge and the complicated system that makes all of this possible. This is Dirty Business from Louisville Public Media. Welcome back. This is Dirty Business from Louisville Public Media, a look at the lucrative business of debris pickup after the 2022 flood in Kentucky. I'm Justin Hicks.

Jared Bennett (16:38)

And I'm Jared Bennett. What happened to Don and Melissa Young is an extreme version of a story we heard over and over again. In eastern Kentucky, people who had just survived a massive disaster watched as cleanup crews demolished and hauled away property, trees or chunks of land. Laverne Fields in Letcher county told us she tried to get cleanup crews to delay demolishing her house until she could go in and retrieve a safe containing documents. They' during the recovery process, we didn't want them to maybe scoop that up and take it to the landfill somewhere. She said the crews knocked parts of the house into the creek, the safe along with it. And I don't know who they work for. The crew was working for Ash Brit, the company Kentucky hired to clean up the flood debris. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's office initially predicted the price tag for the entire cleanup mission would be 30, $30 million. At last count, Ashprett has made over $170 million off this contract. Months later, the state said that initial estimate actually referred to the cost of the work done at that time, not the estimate of work to come. But the state went on to extend the contract with Ashprit, giving them more work without going through a new procurement process. Think about the past few months. Disasters have happened all over the country, from wildfires in Hawaii to floods in Vermont. And every year, a new batch of hurricanes hits the coast. And if you haven't lived through a disaster yourself, you probably haven't thought much about who cleans up the mess afterwards. But Justin, as we learned, it's big business.

Justin Hicks (18:25)

Yeah, it's really big business.

Jared Bennett (18:27)

Disaster recovery is a multi billion dollar industry.

Samantha Montano (18:31)

There are people and companies who are making profit off of these disasters.

Justin Hicks (18:36)

That's Samantha Montano. She teaches and researches emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Samantha Montano (18:43)

So across the country, as our risk is increasing related to climate change, we

Jared Bennett (18:50)

are seeing that there are increases in

Samantha Montano (18:53)

the number of contractors, the size of

Jared Bennett (18:56)

those contract tax, and the amount of

Samantha Montano (18:58)

profit that they're making.

Justin Hicks (18:59)

Montano explained. Each major disaster creates a large pot of federal dollars.

Samantha Montano (19:04)

So when a community experiences a disaster, the governor of the state needs to request a declaration from the president. And what the governor is saying there is that the state's resources have been overwhelmed and that they need federal support

Justin Hicks (19:21)

from female Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency and asked President Joe Biden to do the same. On July 28, assuming FEMA and the

Jared Bennett (19:30)

White House agree, a declaration is made.

Justin Hicks (19:33)

Biden approved a disaster declaration for eastern Kentucky on July 29, setting the stage for millions of federal dollars to pour into Kentucky.

Jared Bennett (19:41)

And in many events, a disproportionate amount

Samantha Montano (19:44)

of that funding is actually going towards debris removal.

Jared Bennett (19:47)

It's this really expensive task and it's

Justin Branham (19:50)

something that has to be done for

Samantha Montano (19:51)

the rest of recovery to happen.

Jared Bennett (19:53)

Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet started asking debris cleanup companies to estimate how much the work would cost on August 2, just five days after the worst of the flood. With this project, Kentucky knew it would be on the hook for millions of dollars. Here's John Moore with the Cabinet. He handled a lot of the day to day affairs of the project. This is a difficult process and it's a very small contracting industry and it's a very urgent need and all of those play into admittedly a large cost to do the work. Ashprit won the contract Just two days after the state started accepting proposals, we did an open records request to see bids from the nine companies who responded. Aspirit did come in with the lowest price, according to the formula the Transportation Cabinet used to evaluate bids. But a competing company called Custom Tree Care almost immediately complained to the state, raising flags about the process. Jeremy Britton, the chief operating officer of Custom Tree Care, told us they saw problems with how some line items were valued. We didn't think they were going to be weighted fairly and this could allow for a contractor to sort of skew their numbers in order to make larger profits under certain hidden line items. The state told us all the bids were graded using the same criteria. Another company, Ceres Environmental Services, formally protested, saying the state's procurement process was flawed and rushed. It also claimed Ashprit was overcharging more than 10 times the industry standard for some debris. Jim Gray is the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet secretary. He stood by how they selected Ashpritt and said the state needed to move quickly because of the emergency. We're very confident of the approach that was taken, ashbritt said. Cery's protests were based on assumptions and speculation. The state stuck with Ashpritt, but the deal kept changing. They signed off on at least 18 contract modifications over the course of the work John Moore with the Cabinet said they made adjustments to the contract in order to keep the project moving. The adjustments that we made at the outset only made the bid that we went with more attractive and less attractive. The state's changes to the contract made some things more expensive. For example, Kentucky initially agreed to pay Ash Brit$100 per ton of debris removed from the waterways, then ultimately increased it to $210 per ton. Moore said that was based on the state's confusion about clearing roadside streams versus streams in the woods. The modification raising from the up to the 210 was based on initial misunderstanding of the what was included and what was not. So once we started moving on that, we realized there was a disconnect. We huddled back up and clarified that in the contract. Mod Moore and Cabinet Secretary Jim Gray said the scope of the cleanup project wasn't clear from the start. They said the job was too urgent and complex to even estimate how much debris was out there. So it was pretty unclear how much all of this would actually cost. Here's Gray There is no perfect world in an emergency response. Nevertheless, we went through contracting procurement processes very carefully in order to execute on this one. Things do move fast in the wake of disasters. That's why FEMA recommends state and local governments arrange these contracts ahead of time, but Kentucky didn't have that in place. Usually county governments are responsible for disaster cleanup, but Gray says it was clear the flooded counties couldn't afford it in this case, so the state offered to foot the bill and manage the contracting process. It was an overwhelming condition, financially speaking, and from a resource point of view, they're just not experience with having managed these size of contracts. And that's the wheelhouse, of course, of the Transportation Cabinet. That's what we do for a living. There are a lot of problems with this system. In 2020, a federal oversight agency called the Government Accountability Office said the debris contracting business is full of opportunities for fraud, even using bribery or inside knowledge to get contracts. There's all sorts of tricks contractors use, like mislabeling debris or adding weight to loads for higher payouts. Sometimes they get paid by volume instead of weight, and we've heard stories of companies putting false bottoms in their trucks so it takes less debris to fill them. Christopher Curry, a team director at the gao, said there's not a lot of effective guardrails in the system and plenty of ways to inflate costs.

Justin Hicks (25:06)

You know, we look at it too,

Jared Bennett (25:08)

because the federal government spends a lot of money, I mean billions and billions of dollars on this, and it's been an area where there's been a lot of problems over the years. You know, after Katrina, for example, there were a number of potential fraud schemes and problems with just monitoring and tracking how debris is hauled and removed. The accountability office made five recommendations to address these issues, but FEMA hasn't completed any of them so far. The debris industry can be a dirty business.

Justin Hicks (25:39)

That's Wes Maul, the former head of Florida's state emergency agency. He led the state through several major disasters, including hurricanes Michael, Matthew and Irma. He said he saw a lot of the same problems described by the Federal Accountability Office.

Jared Bennett (25:54)

I tend to agree with the federal watchdogs that these incentive structures are upside down.

Justin Hicks (25:59)

There's a lot of money on the line here. And Malz said the problems often start with the initial bids companies make to try and win the job. And remember, one initial estimate for Kentucky's cleanup was 30 million and they've spent more than 170 million so far.

Jared Bennett (26:17)

Disaster debris bids are often in a race to the bottom. Disaster contractors are incentivized to low bid contracts with communities to get their foot in the door. Yet these prices are often unsustainable and they're unable to perform at these prices. When communities backs are up against the wall, they seek to renegotiate for higher prices or seek to push you to a state and federal contract that they also service that pays them more.

Justin Hicks (26:42)

Mall said FEMA could reimburse governments for what they spend on disaster cleanup, but they'll only reimburse if they feel like the contract is all above board and the work was done properly. Mall said. FEMA looks for certain red flags. One of them is contract changes and Ashpritz has at least 18 times. We won't know for a few years just how much money the state will get back from fema. Before we go much further, let's talk about Ashprit. Ashprit's founder, Randy Perkins, was running a landscaping business with his wife when Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida in 1992. Perkins managed to land a debris clearing contract and the company has grown since a lot. While we were reporting this story, a senior vice president for ash, Brit Rob Ray, was interviewed on a podcast called disasterzone.

Jared Bennett (27:43)

Hello, I'm Eric Holdeman and this is Disasterzone. By the way, today's podcast is sponsored by ashprit. Our company, Ashburn Incorporated, has now been in business for over 30 years. We are the largest disaster response and recovery firm in the nation and that's something obviously we're very Proud of.

Justin Hicks (28:04)

But along the way, they've been involved in some controversial jobs. They scored a major contract after Hurricane Katrina. The price of that contract ballooned and Ashpritt and other disaster recovery contractors involved in the cleanup were hauled in front of Congress for an investigation. Here's Perkins testifying before the House Government reform committee in 2006, where a congressman accused him of gaming out the system to inflate prices.

Jared Bennett (28:31)

Nobody was gaming the system, sir, regardless how you'd like to characterize it.

Justin Hicks (28:34)

Perkins wouldn't give us an interview for this project. And an Ashprit spokesperson only agreed to answer a few questions in writing. Complaints about Ashbritt's work have followed other disasters Too, like the 2017 wildfires in Santa Rosa, California. Even with this track record, two years ago, Ashprit went on to win what they said was the largest pre disaster debris contract in history. $1.75 billion. According to the company, the five year contract says if a disaster hits any of the 25 states it applies to, Ashbrick could be tapped to lead the cleanup. And Jared, you found they also got really good at making political connections.

Jared Bennett (29:16)

Yeah, they've hired two high profile lobbying firms to represent them before Congress and federal agencies. These firms also represent some of the biggest companies in the world. Companies like Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, and SpaceX. They represent whole countries, including the governments of Bahrain and India. Ashprit's hired two really well connected lobbying outfits here in Kentucky too. One of them, McCarthy Strategic Solutions, consistently employs the highest paid lobbyists in the state. And Ashford's founder, Randy Perkins, has even dabbled in politics himself. In 2016, he ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives. When you run for office, your party looks into your background to see if anything might come up over the course of the campaign. Here's what the Democratic Party said about Perkins. This is from a leaked memo. It said Perkins could be vulnerable because Ashbrick, quote, has a history of donating to politicians and winning bids despite, quote, being accused of doing substandard work. Perkins has defended Ashprit's track record before Congress, saying the company always follows government procurement rules. He lost the election. Here in Kentucky, Perkins and his son in law, Gerardo Castillo, a top executive at ashpret, each donated $10,000 to the state Democratic Party's executive committee this past May, according to federal records. Those FEC records show Bill Johnson, who worked for Ashprit in Kentucky, also donated $10,000. So did his wife. We asked Ashpritt about these contributions and Castillo responded in an email. Saying the company's employees make political and charitable donations in areas they work as quote, good corporate citizens. The Kentucky Democratic Party told us they get donations from people who support Governor Beshear. And Perkins isn't necessarily party loyal. In fact, federal election watchdogs hit him with a six figure fine in 2021 after his company illegally donated half a million dollars to a pro Trump pac.

Justin Hicks (31:26)

So this was the company Kentucky hired to manage the cleanup process. And they hired local subcontractors to do the heavy dirty lifting, hauling debris out of streams and valleys. The U.S. army Corps of Engineers visited work sites and compiled daily reports that got sent to the state and fema. These reports repeatedly discussed subcontractors removing trees that were ineligible, meaning FEMA wouldn't pay for their removal because they weren't damaged in the flood or didn't meet the agency's strict requirements. In one report, the Corps accused a crew of something called load staging. An Ash Britt subcontractor showed up to a dump site with loads labeled vegetation, but a truck bed was loaded with rocks and dirt, covered by a thin layer of tree branches and leaves. The state said it was hard for crews to fully separate types of debris, but that they paid contractors correctly. But remember, contractors get paid by weight. So the system is set up to reward over clearing. And sometimes that goes against the wishes of survivors like Keith and Lois Rose. Their house in Letcher county sits a ways up from a creek line, so it got very minimal damage. About six weeks after the flood, a company showed up to the Roses property and started pulling out trees from the creek bank. I met up with the Roses and their lawyer at their house. Keith Rose says when he saw the crews outside that day, he came out of his house and demanded to know what was going on. You can't let people run over you. They take advantage of you. Keith says he was simply warning workers to stay off his property. But someone called the local police department. They told me the police are standing over there and they said, you need to get back around the hill out there, back on your side of the creek, out at your house. I said, I own this property out here. Keith and his lawyer strongly disagree with the police report, but here's how it described what happened. The report says Keith was being aggressive and was warned he would be arrested if he didn't let workers on his property. It says Keith wouldn't stop yelling at workers and when they tried to arrest him, he slipped away and ran. So they tased and arrested him.

Justin Branham (33:42)

I went out there and tried to

Justin Hicks (33:44)

Negotiate with them and talk to him. You know, like common sense. But I went to jail. When he was tased, Keith fell. Medical records show he hurt his wrist and ribs. His wife, Lois, spent the afternoon on the phone with her state representative Angie Hatton and Governor Bashir's office, trying to get answers on how this could happen. Keith spent the night in jail. Lois picked him up the next morning. By the time they got home, the debris workers were back at it again. Lois started taking videos on her phone. In them, you can see an excavator with a long arm literally driving through the middle of a creek and bulldozers in the background. All around it were guys in neon vests and hard hats with chainsaws were picking up trash. I don't mind you picking the garbage up at these trees is not to be cut. Angie Hatton said you're not supposed to be on the property unless I tell you you can find be on the property. So take your chainsaws, get across the creek. Lois repeats this several times, making her position really clear. She's trying to be firm, but doesn't want to get arrested, too.

Jared Bennett (34:52)

I do not give you permission to

Justin Hicks (34:54)

be on my property to cut trees.

Jared Bennett (34:57)

You are not to be on my property cutting trees.

Justin Hicks (35:00)

Then a supervisor shouts back something interesting. It's a little hard to hear because they're shouting across a creek, so we raised the volume. We have an order from the governor allowing us access on your private property. Remember, Lois spent part of the day prior on the phone with the governor's office. She said nobody seemed to know why workers would be on their private property without permission.

Jared Bennett (35:21)

No, you're telling a lie.

Justin Hicks (35:23)

Because I asked you if you wanted to see it.

Samantha Montano (35:25)

I have it.

Jared Bennett (35:25)

You told me I don't want to see it. I called the governor's office.

Justin Hicks (35:29)

Workers call the police again. This time a deputy named Seth Whitaker from the Letcher County Sheriff's Department comes out. What's going on? What are you worried about?

Jared Bennett (35:38)

This bank? I've done a lot.

Justin Hicks (35:40)

Six foot of this property, okay, from the flood. And. And then they're cutting the trees on

Jared Bennett (35:46)

my side that's holding the bank. Okay?

Justin Hicks (35:50)

I just want the trees lit, so I wasn't worried about honey.

Don Young (35:54)

Okay?

Justin Hicks (35:55)

What?

Jared Bennett (35:57)

So they're contracted out to do this now?

Justin Branham (35:59)

What do you think's gonna happen then?

Jared Bennett (36:01)

You standing here just saying this.

Justin Hicks (36:03)

They talk for a while, and Lois explains she's worried cutting down these live trees on the creek's edge will cause more erosion. Something they've battled for years on the property. But the deputy tells her to stay out of the worker's way.

Justin Branham (36:17)

Well, here's what we're going to do.

Jared Bennett (36:19)

You're going to go to your house

Justin Branham (36:22)

and have a seat and let them do their thing.

Justin Hicks (36:24)

Okay? Chainsaws crank up almost immediately after Whittaker starts leading Lois away from the creek. Oh, my God. I hate to see my trees go.

Jared Bennett (36:39)

I. I understand that. I really do. Turns out these companies did have this authority. A couple weeks earlier, the state's energy and environment Cabinet signed a memo with the Transportation Cabinet giving Ashprit and its subcontractors emergency powers. Emergency powers to go on private property and do whatever they needed to clean waterways for health and safety reasons. But we couldn't find any evidence that this was ever communicated to citizens. Meanwhile, the cost of the project grew and grew as survivors on the ground felt pushed around by cleanup crews and waterways or were still backed up with debris. And that might be the most dangerous part of this whole story. That part when we come back. This is Dirty Business from Louisville Public Media.

Justin Hicks (37:53)

Welcome back.

Samantha Montano (37:54)

What if you could color your hair without worrying about the damage? With K18 Molecular Repair Mask, you can. K18 Hair has been breaking rules and records since day one, delivering soft, strong, bouncy hair even if you bleach, color and use heat. The patented K18 peptide is the greatest discovery in hair history. It reverses damage in four minutes deep within hair's innermost layers. Before K18, real lasting biomimetic repair didn't exist, so they went ahead and invented it. For breakthrough results, the K18 mask gets molecular. My hair has never felt this healthy. You'll flip for hair like new, too. Shop at Sephora or get 10% off your first purchase with code podcast@k18hair.com that's code podcast18hair.com this is dirty business From

Justin Hicks (38:47)

Louisville Public Media, a look at the business of debris pickup after floods in Kentucky. I'm Justin Hicks.

Jared Bennett (38:54)

And I'm Jared Bennett. Now, I'm going to introduce you to a guy named Justin Branham. He's a regulatory biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers who worked on the cleanup effort, and he drove us around Letcher county to show us some of the problems with the project firsthand. If you're looking for someone to give you a tour of the creeks and streams in Letcher County, Branham's your guy.

Justin Branham (39:18)

I've been a resident of this county my entire life. I mean, I'm born and raised here.

Jared Bennett (39:23)

In his work with the Army Corps of Engineers, Branham Spends his days studying waterways in eastern Kentucky.

Justin Branham (39:29)

I love to fish. Fished these creeks. I mean, fished them my entire life. Rode bicycles from McRoberts to Neon. Fished every deep hole of water. Could tell you every deep hole of water water. So I know how these streams operate, I know how they work, and I know exactly what these streams look like before we ever have a flood. And I can tell you what they're going to look like after a flood. Based on the condition of the watershed.

Jared Bennett (39:50)

The corps has sent Branham to debris cleanup missions in New York after Hurricane Sandy, in Oregon and in Arkansas when the floods struck his hometown. Branham said the corps asked him to estimate the amount of debris in the area and observe the ensuing cleanup process. FEMA hired the Corps of Engineers as an extra layer of oversight. If Branham saw something wrong, it was his job to let people know. Remember Don and Melissa Young, the couple who had their mobile home taken with the family mementos inside? Branham actually grew up less than a mile from then. He said their home needed to be torn down, but that the whole thing could have been handled differently. Even just giving them a little warning or a calm explanation could have prevented the incident from boiling over, he said. So in a daily report filed by the corps that went to state government and to fema, that incident planted a seed of doubt in Branham's mind.

Justin Branham (40:49)

You're pitting people against people that don't need to be pitted against. I mean, they should be working as a team and I should be able to go out into my community and say I'm doing the best I can to help these people.

Jared Bennett (40:59)

But Branham noticed another problem that scared him even more than demolishing the Young's home. At the start, Branham said contractors were allowed to be more aggressive about removing dangerous debris. But he said a few weeks into the project, they started getting orders to leave tons of debris behind, stuff like dirt and rocks that obviously slid off the mountains in the flood. It didn't make sense to Branham that Cruz would literally tear down a house over his neighbor's objections, but leave massive piles of obvious debris clogging the streams, making it more likely to flood the next time it rains.

Justin Branham (41:35)

You know, and there's a monitor firm. We've got orders from the governor. Here's the letter. Let him read it. Here's who says we can do this. We can cross your property. We can do whatever we want to. And then their tone changed completely through the missions to we're only going to get, you know, if it's a trickle of water. We're going to leave it. We ain't touching it.

Jared Bennett (41:53)

Branham took us to a spot he said showed the problem clearly. The creek still had fallen trees, trash, and a mound of rock and dirt splitting it in two. There were also tracks where heavy machinery had driven through.

Justin Branham (42:07)

But in the beginning, all this that you see here, they would have been grabbing that anything laying over the tree, and that's what they should have done.

Justin Hicks (42:13)

That's debris.

Jared Bennett (42:14)

At one point, Branham pulls us into a parking lot to show us a spot where the debris was especially dangerous.

Justin Branham (42:20)

Right here. I'm just gonna pull it up. This is where my little boy goes to school.

Jared Bennett (42:23)

Two bridges span a stream here. Both of them are visibly clogged underneath by fresh piles of coal flecked sediment left here by the flood. Branum said it's like this all over Letcher county and beyond.

Justin Branham (42:37)

You see that half of that bridge right there? So you've got this bridge, that bridge. Oh, one stopped up and one more upstream. So you got three infrastructure, three pieces of infrastructure here. And look at the amount of debris here that they're going to say is ineligible.

Jared Bennett (42:50)

Branham said several of his neighbors asked him why they still had a big pile of sediment threatening to flood their creek again. They had just lived through a flood and knew what could happen if the water couldn't drain. And they started blaming him.

Justin Branham (43:03)

Justin works for them. Justin's letting this happen. Justin got my house tore down. Justin got this. You know, just this happened because of Justin.

Don Young (43:09)

Right.

Justin Branham (43:10)

So I took a little bit more interest in it, and I said, I can't do this.

Jared Bennett (43:14)

Branham eventually got fed up. He emailed public officials, including one of the governor's top advisors, Rocky Atkins, with his concerns, but he says nothing ever came from those warnings. We got that email in a public records request. Branham was extremely clear on his stance. The mission was turning into a failure, and all of that money the state was paying Ash Britt was looking like a waste. We talked to his bosses at the army corps of engineers about the letter. They acknowledged they received a complaint from Branham and reviewed it, but he said they did nothing to address it. Branham said someone from the transportation cabinet called him in response to the email, but disagreed with his assessment of the situation.

Justin Branham (43:58)

I am your eyes and ears right now, and I'm telling you what's wrong, and you ain't doing a damn thing about it. That's just true, though. I mean, I'm going through every official chain that I can go through to get attention brought to this matter. And still nothing changed.

Jared Bennett (44:13)

Even before he filed that complaint, Branham turned down the army corps of engineers request for him to extend his time on the debris cleanup mission. He said it was just too frustrating to watch nothing be done.

Justin Branham (44:26)

These people should be taken care of, and they're not, you know, the ones that didn't lose. Everything's hanging on by a very thin thread, and they're just waiting for the next one to wipe them out. And it ain't going to take one of these big events, Even though there's more of them coming, you know, we hope there's not. You know, they are.

Justin Hicks (44:42)

Branham wasn't the only one taking notice. Local contractors from eastern Kentucky had the same worries. Brandon brock owns a timber company and picked up work from ash brittle While he watched his crews pick up debris last december. He told us not only was it a good chance to make money, he felt good about doing the work.

Justin Branham (45:03)

We're from here, so we take a lot of pride in our community, and we know what the threats are, and we know what people went through. And I don't want to see these people go through it again. I mean, a lot of people worked their whole life and lost stuff, man, you know, and we're poverty struck up here anyway, so, you know, some people ain't got the money to build back.

Justin Hicks (45:22)

He and several other local contractors were constantly battling the shifting criteria that left more and more material in the creek.

Justin Branham (45:29)

The floodplain level now is so much higher than what it was before the flood, and I don't think it's going to take as severe of a flood to affect the people in the same fashion as what it did. Now, if we just get, like, a

Justin Hicks (45:42)

decent good rain by late october, he and the other crews in letcher county decided enough was enough.

Justin Branham (45:49)

I just called one of my buddies and he told me what was going on and stuff. And then another buddy called, said, man, let's just have a safety shutdown, man. Let's try to everybody get on the same page here, because it was just. It was getting. It was just a circus, man.

Justin Hicks (46:00)

According to local news, nearly 15 work crews stopped working for the weekend. They called it a safety stand down. It's kind of like a strike. And they called a press conference. Wymt, a TV station from hazard, kentucky, was there and spoke with a local contractor named Jared breeding.

Justin Branham (46:19)

We're looking for answers. Who's in charge? Who's responsible for all these restrictions? Because we want our communities to be safe. We want to rest assured if there's another flood, that we're not going to see the damages that we saw on July 28.

Justin Hicks (46:36)

And the attention was worked. A big public meeting was called to sort out their concerns. ASHPRIT founder Randy Perkins flew in. Elected officials came, and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet was there. The only group that didn't attend was the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that was supposed to be FEMA's eyes on the ground. John Moore with the Transportation Cabinet said during that meeting, he revealed something to contractors that might explain what was going on.

Jared Bennett (47:05)

And I'll share with you the same thing that I shared with them very early on when we were just starting the waterway process, there was an impasse regarding jurisdiction.

Justin Hicks (47:15)

He said some of the cleanup wouldn't even be paid for by fema. A different agency would handle it.

Jared Bennett (47:21)

And at the very early stage, in order for FEMA to get moving, they had to draw a line in the sand and say anything on this side FEMA is responsible for and anything on the other side NRCS is responsible for.

Justin Hicks (47:35)

NRCS stands for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the federal government. Congress approved just over $18 million for the NRCS to work in streams affected by the floods. But the agency told us in July that construction hasn't started on some projects yet. Now, at one point, NRCS picked about 400 spots to rebuild eroded waterways, but they wouldn't publicly say which spots. That's important because the ash brick crews weren't allowed to do work on the NRCS's side of that line in the sand. Brandon Brock said it felt like a big blame game and the meeting didn't resolve their concerns.

Justin Branham (48:17)

People was aggravated during the meeting. You know, of course, the people that we want to point the finger at that saying, well, you're the one making this call in the river, you know, then they stand up and try to defend their self and then they say something that's not the way we heard it.

Justin Hicks (48:32)

With contractors still unhappy and worried about the safety of people living around damaged streams, Ashpritt and the contractors went behind closed doors there. Several sources told us Ashpritt offered them money. And workers opinions seemed to shift.

Justin Branham (48:50)

It was money wise. I really don't want to relate. Yeah, I'm sure somebody will, but I don't want to.

Justin Hicks (48:56)

You heard $25,000. That's it. They offered their main subcontractors $25,000 each. Ashbert sent us a statement saying that money was to help cover lost pay during the shutdown. And they gave some other contractors a raise. FEMA and the state made no changes. None of the subcontractors concerns were addressed, but they went back to work.

Jared Bennett (49:20)

The waterway debris mission ended on December 22, 2022. We analyzed the data on how much was picked up and compared it to the earlier estimates. According to our analysis, only 59% of the debris the Army Corps of Engineers estimated at the beginning was actually picked up. Ashprit told us the decisions about what to remove and what to leave behind were made by the Transportation Cabinet. They could only remove what the state and its monitors approved. The state Transportation Cabinet told us it's misleading to say only 59% was picked up because it's not possible to clear 100%. They said the core estimates included ineligible debris and material that homeowners cleaned up themselves. Estimates also did not include sediment removal, but again, the Transportation Cabinet also never did its own estimate. In a written statement, Cabinet Secretary Jim Gray said he stands behind their work and called it a complex project. We asked about the debris left behind and how it could make future flooding worse. A spokesperson responded that many people in eastern Kentucky live in a flood plain, so nothing they can do would completely prevent future flooding.

Justin Hicks (50:46)

On February 16, 2023, eight weeks after the project was declared completed, at least 3 inches of rain hit the area within a day. Locals told us it was a pretty average late winter rainstorm. When that water streamed off the mountains, it gorged the creeks, many of which were still full of debris. Piles of dirt and rock dislodged from the stream beds, filling culverts and washing them out. Damage assessment teams went out and found debris clogging culverts and pipes all around the region. Months later, this rainfall would be declared a major disaster by the federal government. It was exactly what people had been warning about, and they didn't waste time making their frustrations known. A few days after that rainstorm, residents packed into Letcher County's small courtroom for a regular meeting of the county's local government officials, which in Kentucky they call a fiscal court. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty

Jared Bennett (51:46)

and justice for all.

Justin Hicks (51:48)

It was standing room only. I'd like to welcome everybody here tonight. Some of the first people to approach the podium that night were tomorrow, Tanya Boggs and her mother, Teresa Burke.

Jared Bennett (51:57)

After the main July flood, my yard, my driveway was nothing like it is now. Nothing. My pavement, my drive, my paved driveway is just eroded. I mean, another heavy rain and it's going to it's raining all week and

Justin Hicks (52:17)

it's already stopped up again. They pointed to a contractor sitting in the room who saw the flooding and stopped to help. He came by and seen what a

Justin Branham (52:25)

mess and brought his excavator up there

Jared Bennett (52:26)

and unstopped the culvert. If it wasn't for Wade Adams, she wouldn't even have a house. And you know, it's hard when you're trying to rebuild what was destroyed. And then here this happens and the water came right back in my house, boggs said.

Justin Hicks (52:42)

For many years she had a bridge over the creek, and she thinks debris would have floated under it rather than getting clogged in the culverts. She reported damage to her bridge. And then without warning, and seemingly under the direction of fema, the bridge was taken and seven culverts put in its place.

Jared Bennett (52:58)

I didn't sign nothing for my bridge to be removed and those seven culverts put in there.

Justin Hicks (53:04)

So what?

Jared Bennett (53:05)

Well, what's going to happen now? I gave no one permission to do it at all.

Justin Hicks (53:10)

The county officials said that part of the flood response was out of their control. Either the state or FEMA were in charge, but subcontractors stood up and said the citizens were right. The way the first flood was handled made the second flood worse. The workers said they knew all along what needed to be done, but that's not what they were told to do. A subcontractor named Jonathan Tucker said that according to the Army Corps of Engineers, there's so much debris left behind in some places, the Creek now sits 8ft higher than it did.

Justin Branham (53:42)

It's simple math. In the places that the creeks will raise 8ft in elevation, that's 8 less feet that the water has to take up before you have a flood. So it is still an issue because we were not allowed to take the dirt out to a certain extent. And the problem was is that we live in Appalachian Mountains. The elevation here and the steep terrain, every time we have a really hard rain like that, the top of the mountain gets washed off, the haulers get washed out. All that debris comes to the first flat spot.

Justin Hicks (54:14)

And that's the situation still today. At the fiscal court meeting, county leaders said local contractors would have plenty of opportunities soon, including an upcoming state project. But later in the meeting, a consultant hired by the county said more about that project. It would be for removal of debris left over on private property from the July 2022 flood, using $10 million of estate set aside for flood recovery. But the state had already awarded the contract without putting it out to bid. And guess who got the work? Ashprit. Instead of allowing other companies to bid for the Project Kentucky extended its original contract with Ashburt to last another year and include debris removal from private property. The Transportation Cabinet told us they did that to avoid delays and that work started this spring. Sources on work crews tell us they still aren't allowed to remove things like dirt and sediment. Reporters asked Governor Bashir about these ongoing problems at a press conference in April.

Jared Bennett (55:18)

This rebuild, as well as the cleanup, is going to be one of the most challenging that we have ever faced. Think about the topography, the thousand sites of miles of streams that were impacted and people. So anyone who feels like they're not treated right during the cleanup effort or during the rebuild, listen, we want to be there for them. We want to work through it with them. We know that when you've lost everything, it is a really difficult time. And I, as governor, want to make sure that everyone is treated right. I caught up with Don and Melissa Young, along with Izzy and Betsy, in May. So these are the dogs you saved? Yep, that's my babies. They're renting a house from a friend on the top of a big hill far from any creek. It was Don's birthday, and they were waiting for their son to come over for a visit. The state denied responsibility for tearing down their house. The Youngs were still waiting for a decision on the claim they filed back in November, but they've also hired a lawyer to pursue the case further. To Don, the governor's statement rang hollow.

Don Young (56:29)

What gets me, he says. They want to make sure everybody's treated right. Now I'm just going to tell you what I think. They come in, tore my house down and hauled it off. That ain't right. And they're denying any wrongdoing. They said it was an act of God. God didn't drop an excavator in my yard. Yes, he brought the water, but my home could have been put back on foundation. And they just come in, no warning, and tore it down and hauled it off. When's he gonna make it right?

Jared Bennett (57:02)

If you've had an experience with debris contractors, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us online@lpm.org.

Justin Hicks (57:15)

Dirty Business was reported and written by Jarrett Bennett and Justin Hicks. It was edited by Ryland Barton. Fact Checking by Hilary Niles Produced by Laura Ellis Special thanks to Adesina Emanuel, Katie Myers, Jacob Ryan and Gabrielle Jones. Find more of this reporting@lpm.org DirtyBusiness from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting and Louisville Public Media.