JACKSON, Ky. (LEX 18) — After one year, one month, one week, and two days, Jackson’s Kathy Bays Alberts says she finally has her freedom back.
"It's great, it's much better than being stuck in your apartment all the time," she said with a chuckle.
She’s been largely stuck in her fourth floor apartment because their elevator flooded - with her in it - during the floods that devastated parts of Eastern Kentucky. It left the elevator inoperable.
Kathy, who uses a walker, first told us about how frustrated she was that the elevator had yet to be fixed in February. At the time, an executive with the building’s owner, AU Associates, said they had struggled to find a way to fund the costly fix.
He explained the building is full of affordable housing, which doesn't leave them much to work with. However, he explained that Governor Beshear’s office had allocated federal funds to get the elevator along with the destroyed bottom-floor apartments fixed.
The parts were ordered in March, but supply chain issues have meant the elevator could not reopen until now, adding he’s glad they could get it fixed, he said.
"It was pure joy to be able to ride it up and down again instead of having to climb all those stairs," Alberts said. "I was the first one to ride it down which was appropriate because I was the one in it when it flooded and stopped."
Already she’s taken advantage of the fixed elevator, spending time outside and reconnecting with friends who live in the buildings.
“I had missed it tremendously,” she said.
