West Virginia’s congressional delegation is asking the president to authorize federal disaster relief funds after flash flooding damaged the state’s eastern highlands late last month.
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito joined U.S. Reps. David McKinley, Alex Mooney and Carol Miller in a joint statement Wednesday asking for the federal disaster declaration.
Severe thunderstorms hit Grant, Pendleton, Preston, Tucker and Randolph counties on June 29, leading to flooding and evacuations. Homes were knocked off their foundations and bridges and roads were washed out, including parts of four-lane U.S. Route 33. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.
Republican Gov. Jim Justice has already declared an emergency and the West Virginia National Guard is helping with some of the cleanup.
State authorities are urging West Virginians to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season, even if they’re miles away from the nearest coastline.
During hurricanes, West Virginia often bears the brunt of heavy rainfall, flash flooding, powerful winds, tornadoes and landslides, according to a press release from the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
On Thursday, July 11, the division advised residents to watch out for a tropical storm developing in the Gulf of Mexico that the National Hurricane Center said will become a hurricane by late Friday.
The most recent outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipates nine to 15 named storms in the Atlantic basin hurricane season this year. Four to eight are likely to become hurricanes, with two to four becoming major hurricanes.
The first named storm of the 2019 season, Subtropical Storm Andrea, formed May 20 and dissipated the following day, the division said. Tropical Storm Barry is developing in the Gulf of Mexico now.
The rest of the names for the 2019 season are Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Imelda, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastian, Tanya, Van and Wendy.
In a statement from the division, Director Mike Todorovich said his group and others working for the state “stand ready to respond” to hurricanes and tropical storms.
“Our greatest priority is keeping our fellow West Virginians safe and being ready to respond and mobilize state assets when needed,” Todorovich said.
National Weather Service Issues Flood Watches, Warnings
Credit National Weather Service
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The National Weather Service in Charleston and Pittsburgh also issued a flash flood watch for West Virginia counties on Thursday.
Both advisories will last until 8 p.m., Thursday, July 11. In many of these counties the ground is still saturated from recent rain storms, which could lead to faster flash flooding.
The Charleston-issued watch encompasses Lewis, Harrison, Taylor, Upshur, Barbour, parts of Webster, Pocahontas and Randolph counties.
The Pittsburgh-issued watch covers Brooke, Tucker, Hancock, Marion, Marshall, Monongalia, Ohio, Preston and Wetzel counties.
Pittsburgh’s office issued a much more serious flash flood warning for central Preston county and northeastern West Virginia, lasting until 8:30 p.m.
In a flash flood warning, the National Weather Service has deemed flooding imminent. During a flash flood watch, the National Weather Service reports there are favorable weather conditions for flooding.
Charleston’s flash flood warning applies to portions of Randolph, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur and Webster counties until 5:30 p.m.
Harvey. Irma. Maria. The hurricane season’s super-charged storms have highlighted the importance of disaster planning, and the aftermath offers a fresh lesson in just how long and difficult recovery can be.
Communities in the Ohio Valley, some still recovering from flash floods themselves, are looking at ways to prepare for what emergency management professionals warn is an era of more frequent extreme weather.
It’s time, experts say, to get ready for the new normal.
“Night From Hell”
In late June, 2016, rain fell hard and fast over West Virginia’s steep hills and narrow valleys, causing creeks and rivers to rise to levels scientists say are likely to occur only once every thousand years. Twenty-three people died.
“That was like the night from hell,” Susan Jack recalled.
Jack was in the process of moving away from her home town of Clendenin along the Elk River, about 20 miles northeast of Charleston. A contract job was coming to an end and she had just put her belongings into storage units. Then the storms came.
Credit courtesy of Susan Jack
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courtesy of Susan Jack
Susan Jack (R) and her aunt Lula Jack watch as a family home ruined by floodwaters is torn down. “It was a tough day,” Jack recalled. “So many childhood memories.”
“I ended up carrying my 90-year-old great aunt through floodwaters that night to get out,” she said. “It just came up so fast that you really didn’t have a whole lot of time to respond. But we got to safety and we actually spent the night in a GoMart parking lot at the top of the hill.”
Instead of moving away as planned, Jack got swept up in the current of disaster response. She’s now the executive director of the Greater Kanawha Long-Term Recovery Committee.
“It’s my job now…to make sure that people do not forget that we’re not finished here yet,” Jack said.
Clendenin is now 15 months into recovery. Disaster experts anticipate 3 to 4 more years before all needs have been met. Flash flooding is not unusual in West Virginia’s harsh terrain but the scale and frequency of flooding are becoming more intense.
“Floods are a part of life when you live on a river, but nothing like this,” Jack said. “This was just unlike anything any of us had seen.”
New Normal
Climate scientists and emergency planners say the data support what Susan Jack and others are seeing on the ground. Extreme weather events are increasing. The National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report compiled by numerous federal agencies, shows that heavy downpours have become more common over the past several decades, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. And the report projects that frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events will increase as the climate continues to change.
Timon McPhearson is an expert in community resilience and a professor of urban ecology at the New School in New York. He worries that federal assistance isn’t keeping pace with devastation left in the wake of increased extreme weather events occurring throughout the country.
“If we take climate change seriously and we take the science behind it seriously,” he said, “we’re going to need a much stronger and more robust FEMA with a much larger pile of cash that is able to do emergency response.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency last year gave out $42 million in West Virginia. And those figures don’t begin to match the value of lost property.
“FEMA assistance doesn’t make you whole,” Tom Hart said. He’s an emergency manager in northern West Virginia. “It’s something there to help but it doesn’t make you whole.”
Hart’s section of the state was hit again by flooding this year. His region is now shifting into long- term recovery mode after flash floods took his community by surprise twice in July.
“We have people that were flooded that were still cleaning up from that when they got hit again,” he said. That brought a disaster declaration, and more than $2 million in aid from FEMA.
Each state, county and several cities have disaster preparedness agencies tasked with planning for emergency response. Many leaders of those agencies, like Kentucky’s Director of Emergency Management, Michael Dossett, are reviewing and adapting those plans in light of higher incidences of extreme weather. Dossett said Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are just the latest examples.
“We’re into the new normal,” Dossett said.
“They’re massive systems and they loiter over specific real estate for much longer than the timeline for previous disasters. The damage is more extreme, the heartbreak for our citizens across the nation is expanded.”
Credit Kara Lofton
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White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, after heavy rains resulted in flash flooding that killed 23 people. The Ohio Valley is one of the most flash-flood prone regions in the country.
Disaster managers like Dossett in Kentucky and Hart in West Virginia coordinate response and preparedness efforts among agencies and community partners. They conduct training and drills, study infrastructure, and systematically analyze response events after they occur.
Much of the work involves decisions about large-scale infrastructure and long-term planning. But both men also stressed the importance of individual awareness and readiness.
“You have to be you have to be a little bit more alert, you know, about your surroundings,” Hart said.
Are there debris in streams, downed trees near culverts, weakened bridges or roads nearby? Hart also encouraged people to think about the vulnerabilities of neighbors and potential industrial hazards.
Hart and other experts said they store water in their homes as well as medical supplies, generators, candles and even items like camp stoves and small propane bottles. They say it’s best to have enough on hand to be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours. These experts want disaster preparedness to become a cultural norm, along the lines of smoke alarms and safety belts.
“More Valuable Than Money”
From her recovering community in Clendenin, Susan Jack wondered how many disasters it will take to change the culture throughout the Ohio Valley.
“Unless you’ve been through this, you just don’t get it. You don’t have a clue,” she said. “It’s tough to get what needs done, done. Because there’s no sense of urgency.”
The storms brought a lot of change for Jack and she said it forced her to rethink some priorities. All her belongings in a storage facility were gone.
“I lost everything.”
She found it hard to get reimbursement for items lost in storage and didn’t have time to challenge when her claim was denied.
“It changes your perspective on life so much,” she said. “I look back on it now and I’m like, ‘What in the world are you thinking to have four storage units full of stuff anyway?’”
Now, like many flood victims, she lives with a mountain of debt, broken credit, and all the pain, heartache and humiliation that go with it. But Jack said her work helping others recover has given her peace of mind.
“I sleep like a baby at night because I know that I did everything in my power to try to help my community,” she said. “And you know, sometimes I think maybe that’s more valuable than money.”
Rural towns like hers in long-term recovery still need skilled volunteers such as carpenters and contractors. But she said wherever and whenever floods hit next, she and others who experienced disasters will be ready with knowledge to share about how to pick up the broken pieces.
ReSource reporter Becca Schimmel contributed to this story.
As rain continues to fall throughout southeastern Texas from hurricane Harvey, Governor Jim Justice announced West Virginia is prepared to send resources to assist with emergency efforts, including members of the West Virginia National Guard. Meanwhile, disaster assistance continues in northern counties that experiences flooding in late July.
“West Virginia stands ready, willing and able to provide first responders to assist our fellow Americans in Texas and in other areas along the Gulf Coast as they continue to deal with the massive flooding and devastating damage being caused by Tropical Storm Harvey,” Governor Justice said in a press release.
No requests have been received, but the director of state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Jimmy Gianato reports resources like swift-water rescue teams are being coordinated.
The Home Front
Thomas Kempton, a public information specialist with FEMA, said while many of his colleagues are either enroute or already in Texas, he was dispatched late last week from his home in Anchorage, Alaska, to Marshall and Wetzel counties to help communities hard-hit by flooding a month ago.
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broacasting
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West Virginia Public Broacasting
FEMA, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, as well as other experts are on hand till there’s no longer a need.
“We’re here in McMechen, West Virginia,” Kempton said standing in the Marshall County Disaster Recovery Center which is set up in the Bishop Donahue High School gymnasium. “We have representatives from the Small Business Administration, FEMA and experts to help with mitigation.”
Kempton also came to West Virginia last summer after June flooding left 23 dead and devastated homes and communities. While the 2016 floods were more extensive, he says some aspects of the recovering communities look very similar.
“What strikes me about West Virginia is the resiliency of the people. These are people that are used to relying on their neighbors, they’re used to pulling together as a community.”
Kempton recalled working with residents who had trouble proving they owned their flooded homes because the properties had been in the family for six generation.
“So often in different parts of the country you don’t see that kind of solidarity and cohesiveness that you do in West Virginia,” Kempton said. “People here really do reach out and help each other.”
The flip side of self-reliance is that people sometimes resist accepting help. Kempton said that can be dangerous with threats like mold and an oncoming winter.
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Low interest SBA disaster relief loans are available to residents in affected counties as well as businesses in affected and surrounding counties.
How to Find Help
Meanwhile, federal aid workers are still assisting West Virginians struggling after July 2017 flooding in the northern part of the state.
So far this year Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports 592 disaster assistance registrations statewide. $1.5 million dollars in assistance grants has been approved. More than a million has already been distributed to community members. Residents in Marshall county have received $353,000 — more than $300,000 of that for housing claims.
Residents can also get help by visiting Disaster Recovery Centers in Wetzel or Marshall counties, by calling the FEMA helpline 800-621-3362, or registering online:
Bishop Donahue High School
325 Logan St.
McMechen, WV, 26040
Marshall County
Hundred High School
3490 Hornet Highway Hundred, WV 26575
Wetzel County
Days and Hours:
Monday – Friday: 8 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Disaster loans are available to residents, organizations and businesses through the U.S. Small Business Administration. FEMA grants are limited to about a $30,000 maximum award, but residents could qualify for low interest loans to help replace personal items, damages that aren’t covered by insurance or FEMA, or even economic disruptions from the flood.
The deadline to apply for those loans in October 17th, 2017.
SBA Loan applications are processed in 10-15 days:
Twelve West Virginia counties have been granted public assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for emergency work needed after July 28 and 29 storms damaged or destroyed buildings and homes. The severe storms caused flooding, landslides and mudslides across the northern part of the state.
Individual assistance will be made available to individuals and households in Harrison, Marion, Marshall, and Wetzel Counties.
Public assistance for emergency work and the repair or replacement of disaster-damaged facilities will be made available in Doddridge, Harrison, Marion, Marshall, Monongalia, Ohio, Preston, Randolph, Taylor, Tucker, Tyler, and Wetzel Counties.
The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which is assistance for actions taken to prevent or reduce long-term risk to life and property from natural hazards will be available for all areas in the State of West Virginia.
Communities in rural northern West Virginia towns are still cleaning up from and coping with the effects of flash flooding in July when a state of emergency was declared in eight counties. Hundred — a small town in Wetzel County — was among the hardest hit.
Donations are still being accepted at Hundred High School and at Union Bank, as well as online. Surplus donations are being forwarded on to Mannington, which is also still in recovery.
Some 7,000 hours of volunteer labor and thousands of meals have been served to residents in the Hundred area, so far. Volunteers are feeding fewer people at this point, but area churches are taking turns cooking and serving meals at the Hundred United Methodist Church from 1-4 p.m. daily until there’s no longer a need.
Hundred is at least 20 minutes from anywhere — and 40 minutes from any large retail stores. You can only get to the town of about 200 people traveling along twisting winding ridges and hollows. While volunteers and the National Guard have cleared most of the town of debris, plastic debris and mud still clings high in the trees around the creek — a stark reminder of how violent this small tributary can rapidly become.
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Plastic debris and mud lines the creek bed, reaching up into the trees, highlighting the flood levels from July 29th.
Hearing Hundred
For the past 30 years, Edward Wade and his immediate family lived on the edge of Hundred in a small trailer court along the West Virginia Fork Fish Creek. He said he’s never experienced anything in his 72 years like the waters that swept into his mobile home at 2 in the morning, on July 30.
“When the girls got out — that was my main concern for them to go,” he said. “I wasn’t worried about myself.”
Rescuers couldn’t reach Edward. He sat in water up to his chest until morning.
“They ain’t gonna get me back on the creek — I’m done,” Edward said. “I stayed in there with the water up like that — and the electric stayed on!”
Edward says looters have already tried to strip his abandoned mobile home of wires and electrical boxes. He and his step daughters just moved into a nearby home that a relative doesn’t occupy any more. They’re hoping to eventually buy the small house, but are happy to have a clean, dry place to live in for now.
Not everyone has been as lucky.
Hundred High School is still a base camp for relief supplies and food more than a week after the latest flood swept through town — though volunteers are beginning to move supplies to a nearby business so that school can resume on time later this month.
Madeline VanScyoc, 13, is one such volunteer. Her family has a contracting business in Hundred that took a major hit, estimating they’ve taken $300 thousand in damage.
Madeline isn’t phased.
“People went through worse stuff than we did,” she said. And she would know. She’s been working at the school, helping families who have little left, getting to know the National Guard, and she says that’s allowed her to count her own blessings.
“There were two houses completely washed away. Some of the kids that I was watching the other day while their parents had to go out and get new shoes and stuff — this little boy had nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper on because his whole room washed out. He had nothing.”
Lessons from Richwood and the Flood of 2016
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Flood relief volunteers Beverly VanScyoc and her daughter Madeline at Hundred High School.
Madeline’s mom, Beverly VanScyoc, is the guidance counselor at the high school but she’s taken over managing flood relief communications. When she isn’t collecting information or passing information out, she’s stopping in on hard-hit families to make sure they’re effectively coping in the flood’s aftermath. She says silver lining of the flood might be that the community is becoming better acquainted with each other, and other flood-hit towns.
Beverly was able to meet relief organizers from Richwood in the immediate aftermath of the flood to learn how people coped with the flood that hit West Virginia in June 2016.
“That was the most helpful thing anyone could have done for us.”
She hasn’t been home but for three nights in the first nine days of flood aftermath. She said she’s been sleeping on lawn chairs and running on adrenalin, but she’s looking forward to life returning to some kind of order. She doesn’t use the word “normal” to describe what life in Hundred will be.
“Richwood,” she pointed out, “is at 14 months right now, and they’re still in recovery. It’s gonna be a long time. Our families, they have very low financial means and I don’t know that they’re ever gonna recover.”
Beverly said Hundred is looking to other recovery examples the state saw last summer — tiny houses and best-practices to get the most help possible from FEMA. But she says one of the hardest lessons learned after the flooding in June 2016 was that — if you’re poor, you can’t expect much financial help.
“They don’t own their lands, they don’t own their trailers. When FEMA comes in they’re gonna give them maybe a couple hundred dollars for personal items lost… People think FEMA is gonna come in and be their savior. FEMA is not gonna be their savior. They don’t own anything and these people lost literally everything they own.”
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Hundred, WV, a week after flooding, is still clearing and cleaning debris.
Beverly reports 40 or 50 homes were lost or severely damaged. Families are homeless and without vehicles. Some are simply refusing to leave water-logged homes.
“We’re having a hard time getting some of the residents to understands all the health issued they’re gonna have as a result of being in there.”
The town’s fire department lost four emergency fire vehicles and an ambulance as well as four personal vehicles during rescue operations. The town also lost it’s garbage truck. The water system was flooded, many mains burst and the whole service area remains under a boil order. Hundred’s only grocery store did just have a new kitchen donated, but Beverly says it’s not likely to reopen for months.
Still, there’s hope for revitalization. Madeline said the flood introduced her to the more human side of her town.
“I didn’t know that so many people actually cared,” Madeline said. “A lot of the people around here — all they care about is drugs. And so many people came out of the woodwork and helped.”
