- Nearly 150,000 people live in the three counties surrounding London, Kentucky - Knox, Laurel, and Whitely.
- Residents of former coal-mining hotspot in Appalachia have struggled for years. The coronavirus pandemic is making their lives more challenging yet.
- One extended family in the London, Kentucky area told Business Insider that hunting or fishing were becoming common as grocery standbys such as Walmart, Kroger, and Save A Lot run out of meat. Even food banks are running low. Some are worried that they will not be able to feed their children.
- Experts on poverty and economics say the area points to how institutions across rural America are crumbling - leaving impoverished, isolated people more pressured than ever.
- And once the virus itself hits Eastern Kentucky, one expert said, "the potential for the devastation and human on life is very high" because of the high likelihood for medical conditions in the region, including black lung, smoking, and diabetes.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The Walmart Supercenter in Corbin, Kentucky, was out of meat. So was the nearby Save A Lot, the Kroger, and several food banks. Coronavirus-fueled panic buying appeared to be in full effect.
On a recent Tuesday, Andrea Moss, age 33, went to all of those grocers. She'd heard she could join the lineup at Walmart, her standby, at 5 or 6 a.m. every day to buy meat for her, her husband, and her four boys and one girl, her youngest. "She's a firecracker," she said.
At Walmart, Moss found a can of green beans and a can of corn. As she picked up the last few jars of peanut butter, a woman who said she had two babies at home asked her if she could have them. Moss handed them over. Then at Kroger, she saw a person dumpster diving.
Moss told her mother, Melinda Lindsey, about the lack of options. Lindsey, an out-of-work, 51-year-old truck driver with coronavirus symptoms, is considering all options.
"I have a big pond out here on my property, so I can fish out of it," Lindsey told me. "We can definitely do some fishing."
Even in normal times, many of the folks in this swath of Kentucky where Lindsey and Moss live are challenged when it comes to paying for food or finding a well-paying job, given the stagnant local economy and shrinking tax base.
Today, across poor, rural areas, the coronavirus is knocking down the already shaky infrastructure that usually keeps daily life churning. In the London, Kentucky tri-county area, home to nearly 150,000 people, many residents are unable to find a stocked grocery store or food bank. They worry about losing electricity and getting evicted.
"What little money they had in the bank is done gone," Moss said of her neighbors in the counties of Knox, Laurel, and Whitley. "What does that mean for them? Are they going to have to starve?"
Earlier this month, Moss stretched two rolls of hamburger meat into meals for days. She is $400 in debt and behind $100 on her rent. More trips to the grocery store means spending more on gas. Since the school shut down in response to COVID-19, her five children no longer receive their state-mandated free breakfasts and lunches. Moss' husband, a yard man, can't find work.
The situation for the rest of the family shows no signs of improving. When the Melinda Lindsey's trucking company learned she'd shown symptoms of coronavirus, her manager took her truck and told her and her husband - a driver with the same company - that they couldn't work until they could show that they were symptom-free.
They're already in the hole about $70,000 since the trucking company they were previously signed on to, Celadon, went bankrupt last year in one of the biggest collapses in trucking history.
"It's really bad here," Moss said. "People are in panic mode."
As recently as the late 2000s, the coal industry provided eastern Kentucky's highest-paying jobs. Coal workers made up a tax and consumer base that could help fund strong public services and a robust service economy.
But over time, utility companies like Duke Energy or Consolidated Energy have shifted from coal to natural gas and renewable energy. That movement has accelerated since Obama-era environmental regulations made operating a coal plant pricier. In 2008, coal provided nearly half of the US's power; now it's down to less than a quarter.
Coal's vanishing act means markedly less in tax revenues for eastern Kentucky. For years, the state's 29 coal-producing counties depended on the coal severance tax, which mining companies must pay to extract coal. From 2012 to 2018, revenue from the tax sank by 61%.
The disappearance of the coal industry wrecked eastern Kentucky's job base. The unemployment rate in January was twice the national average, excluding those who have given up looking for work. In Knox County, where Lindsey lives, more than a third of the residents live below the federal poverty line, compared to 17% statewide and 12% nationwide.
"You will see very few people working in Knox County now," Jason Bailey, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, told me. "You basically have an economy where the largest employer is the school system and the county government. There are service jobs - healthcare, grocery stores, pharmacies - but little else."
That was all before the coronavirus crisis arrived.
In response, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered schools to close on March 12. Then on March 23 he ordered all nonessential businesses statewide to close, except for online or pickup orders. The shuttering of schools, stores, and some factories, as well as reduced hours, has dissolved what was left of local economy.
A well-funded local government can more easily staff up food banks, schools, hospitals, and other institutions. For example, as the coronavirus forces schools to close, some counties nationwide are delivering meals to low-income children who normally qualify for free breakfast and lunch. This means that cash-strapped families don't have to use their dwindling funds and time to drive to their childrens' schools twice a day to pick up food.
The school district in Laurel County, where 67% of students qualify for free or reduced meals, is not offering that service. Instead, its website instructs families who are unable to collect the government-funded meals to call the schools. Calls to the school district went unanswered.
Moss, whose children attend school in Laurel County, said she depends on the free breakfasts and lunches for her five children. Finding the money to feed them while her husband is out of work has been a challenge. "We didn't have much money to fall back on," Moss said. "We didn't know they were going to be out of school."
The head of Laurel County, Judge Executive David Westerfield, said in an interview that schools are providing pick-up meals for those families who qualify for free breakfasts or lunches. As for mothers like Moss running short on gas money: "I don't have an answer for you."
"If you take a poor community and you whack it on the head like coronavirus did, it really sets it out of equilibrium," James Ziliak, director of the University of Kentucky's Center for Poverty Research, told me. "When you hit it hard with something like this, it undermines what little safety net existed underneath in the first place."
As the net has fallen away, Moss said her neighbors have taken matters quite literally into their own hands. "People are going out right now trying to fish and hunt deers because there's nothing to eat," she said. "They're afraid."
Knox County Judge Executive Mike Mitchell questioned her assessment. In an interview, he said the problems plaguing the region are like those of other communities across the country. He said he was not aware of the lines at Walmart, or people in the community discussing going hunting or fishing for food, or the food banks drying up. He pointed to the schools, churches, and food banks who are supporting residents.
"I'm confused about the extremities of what you're asking," Mitchell said. "Everybody is looking for a story right now." Two days after this conversation, Mitchell declared a countywide emergency.
Westerfield said he knows people are struggling, but that the county can't provide meaningful financial support. He said he's leaning on the federal government, particularly the stimulus checks that will provide a one-time payment of $1,200 to many Americans.
In the meantime, he said he goes on local radio regularly to advise Laurel County residents to practice good hygiene, keep six feet away from others, and limit visits to big-box stores to just once per week.
Nationwide, grocery stores have struggled with empty shelves as so-called panic buyers stock up on perishables, canned food, and paper goods. While the Food and Drug Administration has emphasized to Americans that there is no national food shortage, the coronavirus has upended the complex network of supply chains that farmers, grocers, and truckers usually depend on to ensure goods are on shelf.
The problem in the London, Kentucky area is the relative dearth of grocery options. The Department of Agriculture has classified several areas of the tri-county area as food deserts, meaning there is no access to fresh food 10 miles from where people live.
"People are poor here, but even if you got money, there's still nothing to buy," Lindsey added. "If there's nothing to buy, you might as well not have money."
In emailed statements, neither Walmart, Kroger, nor Save A Lot appeared worried about their ability to keep their shelves stocked in their rural outlets.
Anne Hatfield, director of Walmart Global Communications, said that demand has increased, but it was "not experiencing significant disruptions" and "continuing to work diligently to take care of the communities we serve."
Kroger spokesperson Erin Grant said all stores were receiving consistent deliveries based on demand.
And Save A Lot director of communications Sarah Griffin said each store in its network was replenished at least three days a week, but some were restocked daily. "We do have temporary limits on some high-demand items in store, and this may vary by location," she wrote. Griffin said Save A Lot, which operates about 1,300 stores across 36 states, would offer each of the three women I spoke with a $100 store gift card.
While the current economic picture for eastern Kentucky is grim, the future - when COVID-19 starts walloping the county - may be even more frightening.
The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy's Jason Bailey said that because the area is more rural and remote, the virus will be late to arrive: "But once it gets there, the potential for the devastation and human on life is very high."
He pointed to higher-than-average smoking and diabetes rates in the region, not to mention black-lung disease, which as many as 20% of former coal miners in Appalachia have. Meanwhile, staffing at the public-health office that serves eastern Kentucky has shrunk from about 300 employees in the early 200os to 110 today, the director told The New York Times this month.
Lindsey has already found herself unable to get a coronavirus test in Knox County, despite showing all the symptoms.
She became a truck driver seven years ago, after marrying her current husband, her high-school sweetheart. "He had asked my mom to marry me," she said. "She told him to wait until we were older."
Today, they must stay home until they can show the company they've tested negative for the virus.
But she can't get a test, and she can't stop coughing. She's a smoker and doesn't have health insurance, which costs $380 a week. The couple made $50,000 last year in total after paying expenses on their big rig. She is scared.
The Lindseys worry their company will come up to Kentucky and seize their truck. They're worried the gas and electricity at their home will be shut off.
Above all, they worry what will happen when their neighbors get desperate.
"People are suffering right now," Lindsey said. "Give it a month. Kentucky is big on guns. The majority of everybody who lives here has guns. They're going to start breaking into people's houses and shoot. People around here won't hesitate to do it."
"If they're fighting in Walmart now, it could be a month from today," her husband said.
Lindsey was even more unsure. "Even two weeks from now."