Appalshop Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

How The BBC Tapped A Local Reporter To Cover Kentucky’s Flood Recovery

Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke with Katie Myers and Philip Reevell about the process of making a documentary in this way, with one reporter from the area and another from an overseas outlet.

This conversation originally aired in the March 5, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Katie Myers was working her first journalism job at WMMT/Appalshop when last summer’s floods struck eastern Kentucky.

Myers plunged into her work as a reporter, while also living through the flood and recovery alongside neighbors in her community. Her knowledge and rapport with local residents is evident in “Kentucky Flooding,” a 38-minute audio documentary that aired on the BBC Documentary show and podcast. It was produced by reporter Philip Reevell, who flew in from the UK to report on the flood’s aftermath.

Reevell worked closely with Myers. Since she was a local reporter, with knowledge of the area, she was able to help guide him and introduce him to people. And to powerful effect.

Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke with Myers and Reevell about the process of making a documentary in this way, with one reporter from the area and another from an overseas outlet.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Adams: When the Kentucky assignment came up, was it a story that came from you, Philip?

Reevell: It came from me. I’d been reading about the floods. It’s a pretty devastating story. I pitched the idea to the BBC World Service editor. And then I reached out to Katie to help us do it. And that’s how it came about.

Adams: As I understand it, Katie, WMMT/Appalshop was among those places affected by the flooding. Can you talk about what happened with the flooding in your employer?

Myers: The Kentucky River had gotten high enough to do something like that since ‘57. There was no expectation that this could happen, even in a heavy rain. We figured it would just lap at the bottom of the building, and we’d have to deal with some water damage. That day, though, I forget exactly how many feet, but it was something like six feet into the first floor. So the theater, the radio station, all of our equipment, this beautiful art we had hanging downstairs in the gallery, and all this stuff got destroyed. Our archive has decades of precious recordings and film and photographs, documenting life in Eastern Kentucky. That was very severely damaged.

Reevell: That was how I came across the story. That really resonated with me. A photo was tweeted out looking down on Appalshop and showing how high the water had risen. It was like a building within a lake of water. As time went on, we were able to connect with Katie to help us understand how the floods had affected this cultural center that had been there for over 50 years.

Adams: So you’d seen the photos, Philip, you’d corresponded with Katie and other folks. What did you see when you landed on the ground at Whitesburg?

Reevell: I arrived a few weeks after the floods. When I got there, the cleanup was still going on. Katie showed me around different areas in the town and around in the hollers, which were devastated. It was pretty shocking to see houses that had been washed away from the road. Then to see people living in tents beside the road where their home had been washed away. Or to meet people who were still clearing out a home that had been ruined, pulling up the floor or pulling down the wall. That was really pretty shocking, frankly, and upsetting to see how people’s lives have been totally turned upside down.

Adams: What strikes me when I listen to this documentary, is it’s immediately apparent that Katie has been living through the recovery. And not just that, but actively participating in the recovery efforts. Katie, can you tell us what life was like in those weeks between the flooding leading up to some of this reporting with Reevell?

A photo of a camp where people were living as they cleaned up their flooded homes. *Credit: Philip Reevell*

Myers: I want to, first off, say that I wasn’t directly affected by this flood. I was pretty lucky. I didn’t lose anything, I didn’t lose anyone. I still had a job and still had an income, so I was much luckier than a lot of other folks. This is my first journalism job, and I still am navigating the ways it changes your relationship to people. Sometimes, like, you end up seeing everything through a lens or through the microphone instead of just as a person. There’s this fragmenting of identities that you can have as a journalist. And I was just one person. In this situation, it’s like, of course you help people. What else are you going to do? There’s nothing else to do. Everybody is trying to dig themselves out of a hole, and what kind of a person are you if you don’t try to help them out? That was what everyone was doing. And it seemed very natural to do.

Adams: What kind of response did you all see once this documentary aired?

Myers: There’s always this constant worry that eastern Kentucky will be forgotten. And just the fact that people from so far away were so interested in the place’s story, I think that really meant a lot to folks. One thing a 3:30-minute radio feature also can’t do is really let people talk. I think this piece allowed people to just just talk in it. People wanted to express and understand what had happened to them. All you had to do is ask one question, and people would just start going off because, like, nobody was going to see their therapist. You know what I mean?A lot of folks don’t have an outlet to talk through like these traumas that have just happened to them. I think being able to hear that was really powerful.

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Listen to the full interview by clicking or tapping the “Listen” button at the top of this story, or check it out on Inside Appalachia.

The BBC Documentary, “Kentucky Flooding,” also is available to hear on the BBC.

Organizations Set To Provide Resources, Donations After Kentucky Flooding

Appalachians are still feeling the effects of flooding in eastern Kentucky, southern Virginia, and parts of West Virginia. At least 37 people have died as a result, according to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

For people wanting to help, Appalachian film and media company Appalshop, based in hard hit Whitesburg, has compiled a list of resources and organizations on its website. Many immediate needs have been met, according to the post, but several mutual aid organizations in the region are looking for cleaning supplies and direct donations.

The American Red Cross Central Appalachia Region is looking for volunteers to train and are also asking for monetary donations. Donations can be made on the organization’s website, but can also be made by calling 1-800-REDCROSS or by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

Some colleges like Eastern Kentucky University and WVU are also using their emergency funds to help their affected students from the region.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is accepting applications for both individuals and families to receive federal assistance.

Appalshop Inundated By Historic Kentucky Floods

Last week’s flooding in eastern Kentucky devastated towns and lives. Appalshop, the organization that has documented the lives of the people from the region for more than 50 years is right in the middle of the floods in Whitesburg.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Appalshop Operations Director Roger May about where things stand.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Talk to me about the situation in eastern Kentucky and what’s going on on the ground.

The Appalshop building surrounded by water.

May: We’re focused on immediate community support and recovery efforts. All of our staff are accounted for. We’ve lost people in eastern Kentucky. We haven’t been able to fully access our building yet. We had a couple of staff go in to retrieve some things that we needed from there. We’re not really certain at this point of the total damage to our facilities, but it’s estimated that there are heavy losses to our materials and the buildings.

Douglas: You still have film, you still have video, you’ve got audio recordings, it’s truly an archive of Appalachia. What’s your greatest concern?

May: Our greatest concern is the health and safety of our folks. Everybody is chomping at the bit to pitch in and help. It’s a struggle to capture that energy and keep it at bay, because we have to make sure that they’re safe. We do have emergency plans and procedures in place to protect our archival materials, but many of them are preserved off site, according to best practices. That being said, we do have a lot of stuff in the building that likely suffered severe damage. And we’re just not sure of the full situation yet. We haven’t been able to fully assess it. And probably won’t really be able to for several more days or even weeks.

Douglas: Looking forward, what do you need?

May: Well, we’ve got a full resource list compiled on our website. If you go to Appalshop.org, you’ll see a pop up bar that’ll take you directly to a resource page. And that includes news and updates from local and state officials, as well as links for people who are interested and able to donate.

Douglas: Eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, have taken some bad hits over the years. And now this devastation. How do we move forward?

May: I think the same way that we always have. We lean on one another and we don’t wait on anybody else to save us. We’re going to be the ones that get us through this. And while it’s a daunting task, we’ve recovered from other disasters in the past. The thing about this is, the flooding was at historic levels. We’re prepared to deal with regular seasonal flooding, but there was nothing regular about this flooding. The level of the water was considerable. I think that the gauge actually broke somewhere around 21 feet, which is well over the flood stage level. But you know, it’s unfortunately not new to us. We’ll get through it by looking out for each other and taking care of each other.

Douglas: What am I missing, Roger? What do you want to say?

May: Well, I just appreciate the opportunity to share information with listeners. I know that WMMT and Appalshop means a lot to a lot of people, not just in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. We’ve received messages of support from all around the world, and we appreciate you and we hear you and thank you for your support.

Douglas: I saw something, and maybe it’s something you shared on Facebook in the last day or so, but archivists and documentarians from all over the country are reaching out to offer their support and I assume it’s even restoring photographs and that sort of thing.

May: The outpouring of support is overwhelming. And it’s just what people do. They care about Appalshop and they care about the work that we do. They also care about us as human beings and that’s our priority right now.

To support Appalshop, visit their website for more information.

Student Journalists Document The Pandemic In Appalachia

“Hello,” the call began. “This is a prepaid debit call from an inmate at the Virginia Department of Corrections.”

Madison Buchanan, a 19-year-old college student, pressed 0 to accept the call and was connected to Jacob Alan Shouse, Offender Number 1101441.

“I want to thank you so much for helping me out with this,” Buchanan said.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” Shouse replied. “I’m all about new friends, new advocates, activists, anything positive.”

Shouse, 37, had his own agenda in speaking to the student journalist. He asked if he could read Buchanan a letter he had recently written.

“Yes, please, absolutely,” she said.

“Living through this coronavirus pandemic inside the prison walls ⁠— razor wire plantations ⁠— reestablishes helplessness in an exacerbated form,” Shouse read. “One’s life takes an obvious backseat to prison bureaucracy, modern-day slavery. They’re misleading the general public into a false sense of security, that incarcerated loved ones are safe.”

The Virginia Department of Corrections reports 500 total cases of coronavirus infection among inmates at the Greensville Correctional Center and Greensville Work Center, where Shouse is incarcerated, as well as 44 prison staff members. One person incarcerated at Greensville has died from the virus.

Despite that, Shouse said PPE had not been widely available; his “ill-fitting sneeze guard” was not washed regularly; and prison workers and staff wandered freely between units where COVID cases had been reported, and those where none had been.

A resident of Greensville’s mental health unit, Shouse knew that increased isolation or time alone in his cell would have a serious toll on his own mental health and those of the men around him.

“There are intense requirements and guidelines for facilities set forth by state and federal mental health authorities that are not being adhered to,” Shouse reported, “primarily due to us prisoners being voiceless and utterly helpless under a repressive thumb.”

The prison call system interrupted him. “You have one minute remaining.”

Buchanan is a student documentarian with the Appalachian Media Institute, a program in Whitesburg, Kentucky, that trains Appalachian young people to document the region through their own lens.

AMI doesn’t typically provide a theme for its documentarians, preferring to let the young people choose what was important to them to document. But When the pandemic hit, AMI program director Willa Johnson knew it was the perfect opportunity to explore what the pandemic was like for people living in the mountains, told in the voices of those who knew it best. “We saw this as a really crucial moment as filmmakers, as documentarians, to document this really pivotal moment in our community.”

The result was “A Mask on the Mountains: Dimensions of Covid in Appalachia.” Other AMI documentarians produced stories about how the pandemic was impacting the foster care system, high school sports, and local festivals.

Buchanan knew right away that her story would be about people who were incarcerated during the pandemic. “I grew up with a family that has always been involved with criminal systems, there’s been a lot of jail in my life,” Buchanan said. “My family are good people, they just made bad choices. And they would always tell me stories about jail and how bad it is, trying to sway me away from making bad decisions, I guess.”

A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Corrections said incarcerated people were tested for the coronavirus, given ample PPE, and kept in pods away from inmates who had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Shouse finished reading his piece, but the urgency in his voice remained. Previous efforts to get his words beyond the prison’s walls had been stymied. “They censored it and blocked it and never told me that they did,” he said. “Did you get that?”

The connection frayed; the line beeped three times.

“Hello?” Buchanan asked.

There was no reply.

Through My Eyes

Telling stories about Appalachia gave Buchanan an up-close look at the ethics of doing journalism.

“Growing up in Appalachia has definitely shaped the way that I tell stories,” she said. “Obviously I’ve lived through all the positives of living in Appalachia, it being beautiful here, the good people and the good communities like Appalshop and things like that. But I’ve also experienced the negatives: poverty and diseases like black lung. So I have a full spectrum of Appalachia, the good and the bad, and that makes it so I can tell stories without making it seem hopeless or making it seem like everything’s peachy.”

The tension comes at a time when journalists across the country are reckoning with the very idea of objectivity.

“The views and inclinations of whiteness are accepted as the objective neutral,” wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wesley Lowery recently in an opinion in the New York Times. “When black and brown reporters and editors challenge those conventions, it’s not uncommon for them to be pushed out, reprimanded or robbed of new opportunities.”

In different ways, the same has been true for storytellers from Appalachia, where outside journalists, filmmakers and photographers have had a monopoly on defining the region.

By some definitions of objectivity, Buchanan’s personal experience with the justice system would disqualify her from reporting on it. But she doesn’t see it that way. “My family having so much experience with the criminal justice system only makes me more able to see it for what it is,” she said.

Looking at the criminal justice system through an Appalachian lens is particularly powerful, said Johnson.

“One thing that a lot of working-class and poor communities have in common is that the pipeline from school is either hard labor for low wages, or it’s jail and prison. And communities that struggle economically know that you’re a success if you have a job, and if not, then jail and prison are most likely in your future.”

Buchanan added, “There’s so much poverty and there is a lack of jobs here, and I feel that it is easy to fall into a situation where you have to do what you have to do to survive. It’s hard to get on your feet here and it’s easy to fall down, so it sets it up to make the criminal justice system here especially unfair.”

Buchanan said she has shown her radio story to Shouse, who loves it. She is majoring in convergent media at Morehead State University, and hopes to continue telling stories about Appalachia and the criminal justice system in the future.

(Note: The Appalachian Media Institute is a project of Appalshop, which is home to Ohio Valley ReSource member station WMMT.)

Appalshop's 'Chemical Valley'

With the January 9 chemical leak from Freedom Industries leading to the water supply being compromised for 300,000 residents who rely on West Virginia American Water, the ripple effects are sure to impact our state, our region, and possibly even the entire nation on environmental, political, and cultural levels. Yet, concerns over the safety of the environment and health of the local population are nothing new around the Kanawha Valley.

Mimi Pickering and Anne Lewis of Appalshop produced a 1991 documentary titled Chemical Valley about events in the Kanawha Valley in the wake of Union Carbide’s Bhopal disaster in 1984 and a series of frightening chemical leaks that led citizens to demand the right to know and to be protected from toxic chemicals produced and stored there.

In describing her film, Pickering said Chemical Valley: “looks at the realities of environmental racism as residents of Institute describe the price they pay, and the few rewards they receive, from living next to this dangerous plant.”

You can watch the hour-long film in two parts here: