Nationwide, just 2.4% of properties are covered by 4.5 million federal flood insurance policies, an Associated Press analysis shows — but 8.4% are at severe or extreme risk of flooding. The gap illustrates the foundational flaws in a program that fails to balance affordability, flood protection and cost to taxpayers.

This past weekend marked the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene, which claimed more than 250 lives — 108 in North Carolina — and left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days to weeks. In Asheville, the largest city in the western part of the state, the storm left residents without drinking water for 53 days.

As the region marks the two-year anniversary of the catastrophic storm, a Tennessee-based firm is conducting a study of conditions, including debris, in the Virginia section of the river following Helene.

River communities continue to grapple with the hurricane’s aftermath.

Disasters are becoming more frequent and more expensive in the United States. Understanding who receives federal disaster assistance and who is denied or unable to access it is essential to evaluating how well the disaster response and recovery system works. An analysis of newly available county-level data offers insight into where disaster declarations have been successful and establishes a baseline to measure the impact of future policy changes.

Appalachia's trust-based recovery from climate disaster offers a vision of the future and a road map to follow, for anywhere in the world where underdeveloped infrastructure is exposed to climate volatility.

A small stream in eastern Ohio’s Harrison County looks shallow and slow, as it winds past banks of yellow flowers and humming summer bugs. But Natalie Kruse Daniels, a professor and director of the environmental studies program at Ohio University, says the peaceful scene can be deceiving.

State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided. 

But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving states with uncertainty about whether they can expect federal recovery funds.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is no longer in the Trump administration's crosshairs, according to its former leader.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved public assistance for 20 Kentucky counties that dealt with flooding in June, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday. 

Six Kentuckians died in the flooding, which saw eight inches of rain. The affected counties are getting $9 million in help from the federal government, according to U.S. Rep. Andy Barr’s office.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the launch of Worthy Ground, I have found myself in a space of grief. Just a little over four years ago, my hometown and the counties around us were destroyed by what was deemed a one-in-one-thousand-year flood.

Dave Masters could no longer ignore the storm as trees cracked and the swollen river roared. It was dark outside, but through the window he could see his father’s house, usually 100 feet away from the Pigeon River, was surrounded by water. Masters, tall and slender, forded the frigid waist-deep water to wake up his father and convince the 63-year-old to evacuate.

After a disaster, much of the damage is obvious: downed power lines, flooded houses, washed-out roads. These damages make the news and are prioritized for repairs. But the cameras don’t capture the long-term damage: the slow drain on a household’s finances for months, sometimes years, as they struggle to recover.

Wetlands provide several ecosystem services that support human well-being and improve resilience to climate impacts. During flood events, wetlands have the capacity to store floodwaters, reduce rainfall runoff, and resist the flow of water over the landscape, potentially reducing flood losses. As the frequency and severity of flooding increases under climate change in much of the U.S., these functions are expected to become increasingly valuable to households and communities that are exposed to flood risk.

Overnight flash flooding struck several communities in Letcher County, leaving behind mud, property damage and renewed frustration among residents who say the recurring floods are pushing them to their limits.

On July 21, it took 45 minutes for flash floods to destroy three houses in Jason Mulholland’s family. The home he shared with his wife and the nearby homes of his two sons, 33 and 29, are all beyond repair.

After deadly flooding struck north-central West Virginia, new reporting examines why state flood-prevention plans and resilience programs have remained underfunded or unimplemented.

Last week’s outbreak of storms in West Virginia started with two super cells located extremely close together in Ohio and moving into West Virginia. The rare twin cells started in Washington County, Ohio. The storms screamed across the Ohio River and caused widespread damage in Pleasants County.

Torrential rainfall caused flash flooding, mudslides and widespread road damage across northern and central West Virginia. Gov. Patrick Morrisey declared a state of emergency for all 55 counties.