In lawsuits, DRC Emergency Services allegedly put workers' health at risk, underpaid subcontractors, broke deals with business partners and misrepresented their experience to obtain contracts.

Louisville Public Media reporters spent months uncovering the dirty world of disaster clean-up that followed the devastating 2022 floods in eastern Kentucky.

Local governments use federal funds to buy hundreds of homes damaged during last year’s deadly floods.

The company hired to lead the cleanup of the mess left behind the 2022 floods in eastern Kentucky now faces several lawsuits.

Reporters for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and Louisville Public Media spent months digging into the dirty business of disaster cleanup.

Beshear said the Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund has raised over $13 million from more than 41,500 donors.

In a press release earlier this week, state and federal emergency management agencies said the eastern Kentucky flood recovery was “on course.” But a year after the disaster, many are still waiting for aid.

After nearly every federally declared disaster, large, politically connected companies swoop in and secure lucrative cleanup contracts. Last year's flooding in eastern Kentucky was no different. Researchers and federal investigators have flagged these contracts as rife with opportunities for fraud and wasteful spending.

Reporters asked Gov. Andy Beshear about a recent investigation into the eastern Kentucky flooding cleanup process at press conferences Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Both times the governor said he had not read the entire piece, but that the state would “do our best” to address the concerns raised by survivors.

An investigation by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found failures in the state and federal government’s attempt to clean up debris and dangerous materials left by catastrophic flooding in July 2022.