Emergency Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Justice Calls On FEMA, Lawmakers To Supplement Storm Aid

After intense storms last week, Gov. Jim Justice is seeking federal aid from FEMA and the creation of an on-retainer state emergency fund by West Virginia lawmakers.

Updated on Wednesday, April 10 at 3:35 p.m.

Gov. Jim Justice is developing a disaster declaration request for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) over severe weather events that occurred across West Virginia last week.

If approved, the request would grant federal relief funding to West Virginia residents affected by last week’s incidents, which included flooding, tornadoes, and destructive winds. The storms claimed the life of one Wood County resident and wrought structural and property damage statewide.

To qualify as a FEMA disaster, weather emergencies must reach a threshold of local damage that warrants federal intervention.

To strengthen the state’s case for a disaster declaration, Justice said during a virtual press briefing Wednesday that he would combine each of last week’s incidents into a single request.

“The problem with FEMA is they want a great number of people that are affected, or a great amount of property damage,” he said.

Justice has already declared ongoing states of emergency for 12 different counties in response to the incidents. These declarations facilitate state-level emergency response efforts, but do not secure the funding a FEMA disaster declaration provides on the federal level.

During the call, Justice also voiced disapproval of state lawmaker’s inaction on aspects of his budget proposal for the 2024 regular legislative session, which he said would have aided the state’s response to the emergencies so far.

Storms in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle elevated the Ohio River’s water levels, causing severe flooding in nearby Wheeling last week.

*Photo Credit: Wheeling Fire Department*

Justice specifically pointed to a $50 million emergency fund that he requested to have on retainer for unexpected crises.

“The $50 million in regard to emergency funds, because of catastrophic events within our state, is something that is so important,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

But, in a statement following Wednesday’s briefing, Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, pushed back against Justice’s characterization of budget proceedings.

Hanshaw said that any funding set aside in this year’s budget would not yet have been accessible in response to last week’s storms.

Additionally, Hanshaw said that the state’s $85 million Civil Contingent Fund can be applied toward immediate disaster relief with the governor’s approval.

“If the governor wishes to respond to this tragedy in any way, he has the full capacity to do so, unfettered by the Legislature,” he said.

Justice has already declared that he will call lawmakers back to the Capitol before May 14 for a special session of the West Virginia Legislature, with expansions to the state’s budget at the top of his mind.

In pushing for these expansions, Justice said he will renew calls for the state to set aside an emergency relief fund.

“I will surely put that back on the call,” he said.

**Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a comment from Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay.

Rainfall Helps Contain Wildfires, But Problems Persist For Residents

Storms swept West Virginia on Tuesday, providing rainfall over wildfires in the eastern region of the state. Meanwhile, residents are still grappling with property damages on the ground.

Storms swept through West Virginia on Tuesday, knocking down trees and powerlines.

But the rainfall provided an unexpected benefit to communities in the Potomac Highlands and Eastern Panhandle: helping quash fires that have burned for days on end.

Emergency responders are continuing to monitor the region after extensive wildfires burned through more than 5,000 acres in late March.

All of the wildfires have since been contained, which means emergency responders have surrounded them to restrict their spread. But portions of the fire continue to burn, and smaller fires have popped up elsewhere in the state.

Now, the added rainfall has helped emergency responders gain further control over the wildfires, according to Assistant State Forester Linda Carnell.

“We’ve already got over an inch of rain,” she said. “Yes, there are hindrances to too much rain. But, in the long run, this will definitely help get the upper edge on all these fires.”

Still, Carnell said rainstorms are often followed by intense winds. That means residents should remain vigilant about fire safety protocol.

In the meantime, though, she said emergency responders are appreciative of the win.

“It’s a good thing. We’re happy for the rain,” Carnell said. “We definitely needed it.”

A large puddle on Shepherd University’s campus Tuesday following heavy rain. Rainstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday helped further contain wildfires in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands and Eastern Panhandle.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

While the wildfires have been contained, damages continue to affect residents on the ground.

Paul Lewis serves as director of emergency management for Hardy County, one of the areas most affected by the fires. He said the fires have caused significant structural damage, and displaced some residents from their homes.

“We’ve had some houses lost and those people right now are in one of the shelters trying to find a place to relocate,” he said. “There’s at least two families there.”

In addition to homes, several cabins and outbuildings have been destroyed by the flames, he said.

While county officials continue to monitor the situation locally, Lewis said that residents have coordinated with relief organizations to access additional support.

For example, the Catholic Charities of West Virginia has provided resources to residents in need. The Hardy County 4-H Camp, located in Wardensville, has also served as a temporary relief shelter for some residents, he said.

Additionally, Lewis said residents facing damage to their places of residence can contact The American Red Cross of the Greater Shenandoah Valley for further support.

Lewis said the county is still collecting data on the extent of structural damages and further updates will be provided in future.

For more information on wildfire incidents in West Virginia, visit the Division of Forestry’s Fire Report webpage.

Residents affected by the wildfires can contact the Central Appalachian Region of the American Red Cross for support.

911 Outages Disrupt Emergency Communications In Berkeley County

911 lines were experiencing a temporary outage in Berkeley County, W.Va., leaving residents unable to contact county-level emergency services.

Updated on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024 at 12 p.m.

Emergency 911 lines in Berkeley County temporarily went down Wednesday morning, leaving residents unable to contact county emergency services.

The first alert was issued at 11:10 a.m. via Berkeley County’s text message alert system.

News of the outage was then shared on various county social media pages, including the official Facebook page of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department.

For less than an hour, residents were unable to use county emergency lines or non-emergency lines linked to the Berkeley County Department of Emergency Communications.

“[Emergency officials] are working to resolve this issue,” stated the post on Facebook prior to the restoration. “Please contact your local fire, police, or EMS in the event of an emergency. We will update as soon as the lines are back up. Law enforcement can be reached at the following numbers: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Dept. 304-267-7000, Martinsburg City Police 304-264-2100 [and] West Virginia State Police 304-267-0000.”

In November, similar outages in other West Virginia counties left residents unable to contact emergency services for up to 10 hours cumulatively.

911 Outages Left 13 Percent Of W.Va. Residents Without Emergency Services For Up To 10 Hours

An agency tasked with operating West Virginia’s 911 centers has filed a complaint against Frontier West Virginia Inc.

On Wednesday, the E911 Council, the umbrella agency that operates 911 centers in the state, filed a complaint against Frontier Communications with the Public Service Commission (PSC).

According to the complaint within the past 24 months, several Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) within the state have experienced lengthy outages of 911 service.

The most recent outage was from Nov. 28 through Nov. 30 where Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Doddridge, Ritchie, Harrison, Taylor and Mingo County residents were unable to call 911 for up to 10 hours.

The Executive Director of the E911 Council, Dean Meadows, said normally during outages calls can be rerouted, but Frontier Communications failed to reroute the calls.

“Because that plan failed, that put 235,000 residents in West Virginia without the ability to call 911,” Meadows said. “So that’s 13 percent of the population for between six to 10 hours could not call 911 in an emergency situation.”

Meadows also pointed out that the outages occurred during hazardous weather conditions in northern West Virginia, endangering those traveling on the state’s interstates.

Meadows said the E911 Council filed the complaint to prevent future outages.

“What’s happened in the past few years is 911 centers have been given a false sense of security, that there’s redundancy and diversity within their centers that if there’s a fiber cut, or vandalism to to the fiber somehow that their centers will still be covered through this redundancy, but we’re finding out, unfortunately, that’s not the case, the redundancy is not there,” Meadows said.

The PSC said it cannot comment on pending investigations.

National Emergency Alert Test Planned On Oct. 4

A national Emergency Alert System test will begin Wednesday at approximately 2:20 p.m.

A national emergency alert system test will begin Wednesday at approximately 2:20 p.m. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Communications Commission will be testing an alert system that notifies the public of national, state or local emergencies.

The text will display on smartphones in either Spanish or English, depending on the language settings. An alert will also go out on radio and TV. Kanawha County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director C.W. Sigman said if you get an alert outside of routine testing it generally means something very serious is going on.

“It means to pay attention to alerts, go inside, turn on your TV or radio. Try to get more information,” he said.

He said the use of TV, Radio and Cellular alerts helps provide wider coverage, especially for areas with no cellular signal.

“The emergency alert will kind of tell you what’s going on but you may want more information to know what kind of protective actions you should take,” Sigman said.

To ensure that these alerts are accessible to the entire public, including residents with disabilities, the alerts will have a unique tone and vibration.

Communities Work Together In The Aftermath Of Devastating Floods

“These are our people, we have to help.” WVPB speaks with community members affected by recent flooding in Kanawha County. The communities around Slaughter, Witcher, Fields, Kelly and Horse Mill Creek had six to nine inches of precipitation through Monday morning.

The National Weather Service received its first call about the flooding at 6:45 a.m. Monday after rain blanketed eastern Kanawha County through the weekend.

The storm intensified early Monday, by which point the soil was saturated and water was running off the mountain. The communities around Slaughter, Witcher, Fields, Kelly and Horse Mill Creek had six to nine inches of precipitation through Monday morning.

As the water moved down the hills and into creeks beds, it brought debris with it. The more water, the more debris.

Eventually those waterways backed up, and when the water had nowhere else to go, it went into people’s homes, cars, farms and gardens.

Ray Lyons’ home is off Kelly Creek in Mammoth, the location that saw the most rain during the storm Monday. Flood waters came within five feet of his house and flooded his acre-wide vegetable and fruit garden.

“It just came up so fast. Within two hours — and it just kept coming,” Lyons said.

He said during the rain he worked to keep debris, like logs and large mud deposits, out of the road in front of his house so that cars could get through — and escape the flooding.

Eventually the road became too deep with water to pass.

“A lot of people couldn’t get through, and that, oh, that was terrible,” he said.

After the flood, Lyon and his cousin worked with an excavator to dig debris out of the creek to help drain water off the land.

“State [crews] didn’t come up. But you know, I can take care of it, I have lived up this holler my whole life,” he said.

Further downstream from Lyon’s home, in the town of Cedar Creek, the water breached the banks and flooded the land around the confluence of Horsemill Creek and Kelly Creek.

Most of the damage in the area that was accessible Tuesday was a gravel parking lot. It had been completely stripped of gravel during the floods and was a muddy bog on Tuesday.

Ken Barton was on site, leaning against a dump truck with a cane in hand. He used to be mayor, but on Tuesday he was working with construction crews wearing bright yellow “Town of Cedar Creek” shirts and reflective overalls.

“You can see where all the mud and everything is,” Lyon said. “The water came out this way, pushed all this stuff over here.”

He said the mayor asked him and the rest of the crew to head down and help the state crews. His crews worked alongside state crews to clean up the damage and restore the banks of the creek.

“These are our people, we have to help,” Barton said.

Several homes were lost, and more were damaged in Monday’s flood.

On Monday, there were more than 700 calls and 22 water rescues. Some towns saw roadways turn into rivers. Access to these towns is still limited as of Wednesday, and crews are working to open roadways that were blocked by fallen trees and mudslides.

The damage assessment process began Tuesday, and officials are beginning the process of working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other national and state agencies to get money back to the communities to help with recovery and cleanup.