KENTUCKY — Gov. Andy Beshear (D) announced in early September that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has started construction to permanently replace county and state bridges damaged by the devastating flash flooding that happened in eastern Kentucky in late July.

These construction projects will focus on publicly owned crossings that were damaged or destroyed and have significantly limited or eliminated access for drivers.

Crews with KYTC will replace or repair over 170 bridges in eastern Kentucky that were damaged by flooding. These are bridges serving state and county routes and are among nearly 1,100 sites assessed for damage by KYTC inspectors after the July flooding.

"As many as 1,000 employees of the Department of Highways, the Transportation Cabinet were involved in this recovery effort had been involved and it really has meant for broad areas, some of these areas or have those four broad areas are the clearing of the roads, recovery and rebuilding a bridges that had been destroyed. It involves debris removal, both on the rights of way and in the streams. Our work has involved the travel trailer mission that's getting sheltering to so many of those who lost their homes, and finally, credentials, driver's license IDs for those who lost their driver's licenses and their IDs. So there's been a real broad scope of responsibilities," explains Jim Gray, Secretary of Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet.

You can watch the full In Focus segment in the player above.