FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) – Disaster relief from out of state has made it to Frankfort.
In partnership with Walmart, Matthew 25 Ministries from Ohio is offering Tide Loads of Hope. It’s a free laundry service for flood victims.
It’s open through Monday, April 14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Frankfort’s Walmart Supercenter parking lot on Leonardwood Dr.
The mobile truck is a saving grace for many affected by the floods, including Erica Kendall.
She tells WKYT her home was not damaged, but she and her kids had to evacuate.
Now, their water has been shut off.
“I c[a]me over here, they helped me with a few tide pods. There’s a guy who owns a laundromat…he let me wash all of our clothes for free, so that was a blessing that he helped us do that,” Kendall says.
Another man came to use the full service: free washing, drying and folding.
While he waited, he showed WKYT his home on Big Eddy Road. It’s been devastated by floodwaters.
JT O’Connell tells WKYT he has lived on the Kentucky River for all of his life. He says he’s learned to expect flooding, but he wasn’t expecting what April’s floods brought to his home.
He says the waters came all the way up the hill and into the second story of his home.
O’Connell is now facing the aftermath and working to clean up.
Inside of his home shows just how powerful floodwaters can be.
“The force of the river actually lifted the refrigerator out and flipped it over,” O’Connell says.
Upstairs is his grandson’s room.
He says in that room during the flood, “You’d be about hip deep right now in the water.”
Many of his family’s belongings are ruined, including sentimental photographs.
Back outside through the mud is what’s left of O’Connell’s garage.
“The garage door got ripped off the hinges,” he says.
Around the corner from the garage is a glimpse of humor.
O’Connell tells us a surprise holiday ham floated onto their property from the river.
“I thought it was a basketball at first. My wife said, ‘no, it’s a ham.’ So, I rolled it down the hill there to give the wildlife something to munch on for Easter,” he says.
Despite the devastation, O’Connell says he’s not moving anywhere anytime soon.
He’s tackling one task at a time.
Today was laundry day, but he still has a long road ahead of him.
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