WYMT Mountain News Weekend Edition - Top Stories - Saturday, August 17, 2024

Severe thunderstorm warning weekend edition good evening I'm Amelia Lee we start off our evening with a First Alert weather day we have a severe thunderstorm warning in the area and Drake Foley he joins me now Drake what are we expecting to happen this evening with that weather yeah thanks Amelia so we have been tracking a few severe thunderstorms over the last two hours those have continued to move from the Northwestern parts of our area and into the central part of Eastern Kentucky I'm going to take a look at radar right now do have a severe thunderstorm warning out for breath at Lee Aly and wolf counties until 6:30 there 17,000 people impacted by this 60 m per hour winds and hail up to an inch also have another severe thunderstorm warning of for breath and mofen until 6:30 as well with a 60 m per hour and an inch um of hail as well and then 1.25 in hail for this Logan am Mingo County West Virginia severe thunderstorm and that involves 2,000 people 60 mph wind gust so we're expecting this to continue for the rest of the night um probably until around 9:00 that we're going to continue to see these severe thunderstorms do have a history of producing hail so I am going to see if I can pick up the hail track real quick and as you can see did have a lot of hail just south of 460 near parts of West Liberty in Campton earlier as well as moving towards parts of prestonburg but that has since died down a little bit but if we go over to our base velocity map we do see these lighter greens are some still decently strong winds moving through but the severe thunderstorms are no longer at that considerable level we saw about 30 minutes ago Amelia Thank You Drake one Pike County shooting man is dead after a shooting in Pike County on Wednesday Kentucky State Police Post 9 responded to a call about a shooting in the Sydney Community Troopers found 41-year-old William Cheney of Pikeville shot at a home on Big Creek Road Cheney was pronounced dead at the scene by The Pike County coroner's office officials with Kentucky State Police say an investigation is continuing in regards to the Windstream outage shots thousands of customers are experiencing phone outages after a reported copper cable theft on Friday night officials with Windstream by kinetic say approximately 2,000 customers have been impacted including businesses and residents kinetic officials say the theft happened between Hazard and Cumberland the the reportedly cut and stole a copper cable and cut a fiber optic cable if you are impacted by an outage you are asked to report it with the go kinetic Mobile Disaster Recovery Center app a mobile Disaster Recovery Center is opening in Clay County on Monday that's to help folks impacted by the severe storms at the end of May the center begins its services on Monday at the Clay County Community Center hours of operation will be Monday through Saturday from 10: until 7: officials say say people will be there to help folks apply for Aid if they did sustain losses from the storms FEMA assistance can include money for home repairs and other disaster related needs the city of prestonburg hosted a City Cleanup Citywide cleanup wmt's RJ Johnson shares the event impact on the community folks gathered in downtown prestonburg to help clean up around the city uh just doing a little cleanup just trying to pick some trash up throughout the city that as far as we can go go for a four or five hour period uh cleaning up some dead grass just just things along the sidewalk just trying to do a few things to help our uh Landscaping Department mayor Rick Hugh says they want to help beautify the city I you know I want to see people come to this town and I I want to see them come back I want to see them say hey we stopped at this little town in Eastern Kentucky they got a sign up that says Star City and uh it was it was clean but it is also helping out the city as some departments are experiencing Staffing shortages you know we are understaffed and we do try to get out and and we do try to help out and we do try to make sure that as much as we can get taken care of sometimes yes we're running behind uh but we do eventually get to it it just takes a little bit extra time especially since we're we're kind of short-handed the event brought out dozens of people including middle school students I mean they just showed up and and one of the parents who's a good friend of ours uh said yep she rode me alab at 6:30 and said we got to be there by 7:00 including players from the university of pikeville's men's soccer team we actually started at 7 this morning upike couldn't get here to about 8:45 so they're kind of we had set some stuff aside knowing that they were coming so that's what they're working on some of the side streets working together to keep their community clean in prestonburg RJ Johnson WMT Mountain news Hughes says they are accepting Cumberland Falls State Park applications to fill those positions saying you can visit City Hall for more information back in July the Cumberland Falls state Resort Park was awarded the trip advisor Travelers Choice Award for 2024 the honor places the park among the top percent of attractions in the world having one of the best attractions in the world is huge for Corbin and for the people in Eastern Kentucky when asked about the honor Park supervisor says it would not be possible without the people in the community and you know we have people that come back um and you know in my position it's very rewarding to see the little kids come back you know maybe they're older and they come back and get married have their wedding here and then later have a family reunion so it's all about making that Mark and getting them to come back with Summer coming to an end she says there is no better place to close out the summer than at the Cumberland Falls State Park and speaking of the Community Cleanup Fall Eastern Kentucky has many many parks and at the Cumberland fall State Resort Park people came to make sure that it stays clean wmt's Austin Hicks was there for the cleanup The cumland Falls State Resort Park is home to the biggest waterfalling Kentucky known as the Niagara Falls of the South the park attracts thousands of people every year Jihan abzor says to help keep the park clean folks in the community are needed only do cleanups every month during School season of the months for University of Cumberlands but during summer season at peak season we have all the visitors coming in so why not do a public cleanup the people who participated in the cleanup volunteered their time and effort hosting these events help get people in the area involved with the park this is this their park basically you know we want them to feel involved and we want them to feel like they're taking care of this park because a lot of people have had memories here as a kid just like me and there's future generations to come and we want to continue to keep our Park looking beautiful as ever the park clean is always a point of importance for everyone who works at the park seeing people in the community come out and support the park goes a long way you know nothing they're getting out of it but basically feeling good about themselves at the end of the day you know they're doing this cleanup they're doing a good deed it's rewarding and we really really appreciate it so much this was the last cleanup of the summer the public cleanups will begin again next July in Corbin Austin Hicks WMT Mountain news if you are looking for something to do later this evening the park will be hosting its moonbow event at the Cumberland waterfall tonight