East End Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

September 13, 1862: The Battle of Charleston Begins

On September 13, 1862, Charleston residents awoke to the sound of artillery. It was part of a Confederate push to take control of the region after 5,000 Union troops had been transferred from the Kanawha Valley to defend Washington. This left the remaining Union forces, led Joseph A. J. Lightburn, badly outnumbered.

The Battle of Charleston began in the East End near the site of the current capitol. By late morning, Union troops had withdrawn to the downtown area, where they torched a number of buildings to keep them out of enemy hands. The retreating Federals then cut the cables on an Elk River suspension bridge to slow pursuing Confederates.

Despite suffering a crushing defeat, Lightburn was able to maintain a continual skirmish line along his 50-mile retreat to Point Pleasant, while keeping his wagon supply train from falling into enemy hands. Unionist townsfolk and liberated local slaves joined in “Lightburn’s Retreat,” filling the Kanawha River with boats of all kinds and clogging the roads. The Confederate occupation of Charleston lasted scarcely six weeks before Federals reoccupied the valley for the rest of the war.

Obama Announces US will Tackle Prescription Drug Abuse

President Barack Obama says prescription drug abuse is exacting a terrible toll across the country and causing pain for millions of families.

Obama was in West Virginia on Wednesday to highlight the problem. He announced new steps to help improve doctor training and ease access to drug treatment.

He says sales of powerful prescription pain medications have skyrocketed by 300 percent since 1999.

And in 2012 alone, doctors wrote 259 million prescriptions for these highly addictive drugs. Obama says that was more than enough to give a bottle of pills to every American adult.

But he says the federal government alone can’t solve the problem.

West Virginia has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the U.S., more than twice the national average.

East End Energy Efficiency Contest Names Winners

Residents on Nancy and Lewis Streets in Charleston are the big winners of a contest that pitted block against block on Charleston’s East End. The prize was a more energy efficient home.

The contest is called E4 – Energy efficiency in the east end, a Charleston neighborhood with older homes and apartment buildings.

For two years, homeowners signed up to have their homes undergo an energy audit and make improvements to use less power. Emmett Pepper, the Executive Director of Energy Efficient West Virginia says the competition was a great success.

“I’m definitely impressed by how many people participated. We jumped in participation each year. And that’s why this year we’re going to be expanding the program to a city wide program where it’s neighborhood versus neighborhood and not just block versus block.”

Residents on Nancy Street saved 30 percent on their energy bills. Residents on Lewis Street saved the most money, an average $81.21 between June, 2014 when the contest began and May, 2015.

Emmett Pepper, Executive Director of Energy Efficiency West Virginia speaks with reporters about the results of the contest on Thursday, July 30, 2015.

An energy audit begins by depressurizing the house so leaks can be identified and repaired to save energy.

One Year After the Chemical Leak, Mother and Daughter Still Don't Drink Tap Water

It was some ten days before all of the families affected by the tap water ban following Charleston’s chemical spill were able to return to life as usual within their homes. And many did just that, once again drinking, cooking and bathing with water straight from the tap. The same, however, can’t be said for every family in the valley including Lida Shepherd, who says she still won’t drink the water.

Lida Shepherd and her two-year-old daughter, Lucia live in a small apartment on the East End of Charleston. Lucia loves tea.

This time last year, tea wasn’t so easy to make. Lida and her daughter were one of many families directly affected by the January 9^th chemical leak.

“When I first got the word of the chemical leak, and the chemical spill, it was very frightening,” Lida remembered, “It was very frightening to turn on the water, and that smell was, I mean it gave me headaches, I mean I had a, definitely like a physical reaction to it.”

Her reaction was similar to hundreds of Kanawha Valley residents’ reports to their doctors.

Lida and her daughter now use city water to bathe and wash dishes and laundry in, but they still refuse to drink from the tap. Instead, Lida drives 20 miles to her parent’s farm in Sissonville to collect 4 to 6 gallons of water each week from their well. It’s a practice she began a year ago when the water use ban was still in place.

“It certainly has had lasting effects on me,” she said, “It’s now, even when I travel anywhere, whereas before I absolutely, I would just drink water from tap where I go, that’s not the case anymore. I always just sort of think about where I am, and like what’s going on with the water here? There’s definitely some sort of lasting fears, and like I said, I still don’t drink the water.”

Lida is an advocate for West Virginia Free, an organization that focuses on rights for women, and she also works with the American Friends Service Committee where she directs a youth leadership program in Boone County, an area also affected by the spill.

“They grew up in communities where not being able to drink the water comes up a lot,” Lida noted, “This was not a new experience for them to get word that the water wasn’t safe. And so when the chemical spill happened, some of them very much reacted just like, I’m not dead yet, literally that’s one of the girls said, she’s like, oh I’m showering in it.”

Lida says some of her students, however, felt angry at their lawmakers, blaming them for letting this happen or in some cases continue to happen.

After the spill and hearing from her students, Lida says it empowered her to want to make a difference in her state. She’s often advocated for stricter regulations and held a fundraiser at the time to provide bottled water to those who needed it.

“Reflecting on the year after the chemical spill, what we’ve been able to achieve and organize around, I’m pretty impressed by. I think because Charleston, you know, sort of a population center was largely impacted; it shed light on an issue that was an issue before this chemical spill,” she said.

As for Lucia, Lida says her daughter will continue to have tea parties with drinks made from her parents’ well water. At least, for now.