(Photo by Jeanne Marie Hibberd)

RISE, Episode Five: Response. Recovery. Preparedness - the three phases that follow a natural disaster. Six months after a moisture-laden storm stalled above and relentlessly drenched southeast Kentucky the region remains somewhere among those stages. We review FEMA’s performance, learn of the breadth of the first response, and why the flood elevates the push for internet connectivity to a difference between life and death. The ineffectiveness of weather radar in the mountains is explained. And from the region’s two Area Development Districts we hear of active updates to the districts' Hazard Mitigation Plans.