Nearly four months after flooding destroyed homes, roads, and bridges, crews believe some of the repairs will prevent severe damage in the future.

Workers with the USDA's natural resources conservation service have worked on solutions for watersheds all across the region.

This is called the emergency watershed project. Officials liked what they saw on the tour around the Belfry and Sidney areas of Pike County Wednesday.

They believe the work to stabilize creeks and streams will mean less flooding in the future.

The floodwaters are long gone on Dix Fork Road in Sidney, but Frank Robinson clearly remembers the May flood and then the June flood.

"The damage, I believe is unprecedented. I've been in this business almost 32 years and this is the worst i have seen." Said Tom Perrin, NRCS State Conservationist

Officials with the Natural Resources Conservation Service spent the last few months in Eastern Kentucky removing all the debris and trash from the creeks and streams, unclogging drains, and repairing banks and installing rocks and wires to stabilize damaged roads.

Both state and national NRCS and USDA officials toured the Pike County sites on Wednesday to evaluate the repairs.

"Prepare for the future. I believe we'll have floods again. We'll have recovery efforts again, and we just want to be prepared for the next time it happens." said Perrin

The NRCS so far has spent 17 million dollars statewide on the storm recovery projects.

"That's much more money than we've obligated in the emergency watershed program in all of 17 years combined, so yes, it is an unprecedented effort." said Jack Kuhn with the NCRS.

Engineers believe the upgrades will prevent severe damage in the future.

Officials are also evaluating work in the other hard hit counties.
Engineers say the work is 80 percent finished and they hope to complete all the projects within the next few months.