Restoration begins for community after flooding in Mayfield, Kentucky
The Mayfield area still rebuilding after EF-4 tornado in December 2021.
MAYFIELD, Ky. (WSMV) - The Pryorsburg Market store owner Joe Currin, along with his wife and daughter, spent hours pushing water out of their family-owned business.
More than eight inches of rain covered the area of Mayfield and Pryorsburg, Kentucky, Wednesday.
Currin used a red shovel to push water out of his store along with using a few fans to try to dry the wet ground. He’s owned the business for two years and would have never expected this area to flood.
“We lost some candy bars, potato chips, and I hope we didn’t lose our air conditioner because right now it’s not keeping cool,” said Currin as he showed a WSMV4 crew around the store.
Surveillance video, both inside and outside, captured a large amount of rainfall for hours at the market.
Inside the store, surveillance video shows the water rising coming through the front door and items can be seen floating around.
“Some of the cases in here. It even floated stuff around inside of the cooler here,” Currin said after opening the door to the store’s freezer.
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Several homes, local businesses and roadways were covered in water. By the afternoon, the water receded and more people came out to access the damage.
“It was a terrible rain. I heard it all last night. I’ve never heard it rain that hard before. Man, it was rough,” Currin said.
Mayfield and its surrounding areas are no strangers to devastation after a tornado ripped through the area in December 2021. Now, this community is dealing with ravishing floodwaters and the damage that’s left.
“We had COVID. We could hardly keep people working, then we had the tornado hit and now we’ve got a flood. I don’t know what much is left to happen to us,” Currin said.
Pastor Stephen Boyken was asked to use his church building as a place of refuge. He noticed no one was coming by so he went out into the community offering assistance to the community members whose homes flooded. Wednesday afternoon Boyken stopped by the Independent Bible Methodist Church to check on a fellow pastor after the main church and multi-purpose building flooded.
“It’s affected so many people in our community. It’s brought back a lot of memories, a lot of feelings, and what we’re trying to do is just encourage people during this season that God is not finished with our story and that he has a plan for everyone,” said Boyken.
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