Point Pleasant Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Flood Preps Increase Along Ohio River

Flood warnings continued on Thursday for West Virginia communities along the Ohio River. Two counties are hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst.

In Mason County, rising backwaters from the Ohio River are forcing several road closures. Jeremy Bryant, Mason County’s director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said all county schools are closed for the rest of the week. He said in Point Pleasant, it takes about a 50-foot Ohio River flood stage to activate flood wall gating and pumping.

“We’re right now sitting at 45 feet at Point Pleasant and just keeping an eye on the prediction,” Bryant said. “If it would rise any at all, then they’re probably going to have to activate and start looking and putting the flood walls in.”

Bryant said the Ohio River crest is not expected until Saturday. He said the county continues to monitor river levels, communicate with residents and make flood preparations, including possible evacuations.

“There will be places that are shut off, but it’s more of a shut off thing rather than an imminent danger thing,” Bryant said. “We’re making sure that people are aware and let them make their own decisions at this point. If it comes to an evacuation, we’ll deal with it at that time.”

In the Parkersburg area, Wood County 911 Emergency Service Deputy Director Dale McEwuen said some roadways are obstructed and the Red Cross is on standby.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is doing a real good job of controlling the flow of the water,” McEwuen said. “That helps with the flooding purposes. And right now we don’t have any folks displaced from their homes.”

He said they are issuing constant social media alerts as Ohio River water inches toward downtown Parkersburg.

“Our flood wall in Parkersburg is down at the point,” McEwuen said.“It’s called Point Park. It has been closed and there’s water up to it. That prevents water from coming into our downtown area.”

Both counties have first responders on standby as they closely watch the rising river waters. McEwuen said it’s all about watching the numbers now.

“We’re expecting the water to start receding on Sunday,” McEwuen said. “It’s still going to climb probably another two feet between now and then. It will crest at about 41 feet on Sunday and should start receding after that.”

Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge Disaster In 1967 Improved Bridge Safety

The Silver Bridge collapse, on the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, killed 46 people. After it, the Federal Highway Administration began using National Bridge Inspection Standards.

The collapse of a highway bridge in Baltimore Harbor may remind some West Virginians of a tragedy that changed how bridges nationwide are inspected.

Before the Silver Bridge failed on the evening of Dec. 15, 1967, there was no national standard for bridge inspection.

The Silver Bridge collapse, on the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, killed 46 people. In 1971, the Federal Highway Administration began using National Bridge Inspection Standards.

They required the inspection of bridges and their components at least once every two years, with emphasis on fractures, corrosion and fatigue – all of which played a part in the Silver Bridge’s failure.

Stan Bumgardner, a state historian and editor of the West Virginia Encyclopedia, says technology today could have spotted the hidden flaw in the Silver Bridge. It couldn’t then.

“Now, today, they have, you know, techniques where you can get cameras, and you can see places where you couldn’t have seen in 1967. But in 1967 nobody really ever faulted the bridge inspectors for missing anything, just because it wasn’t part of the routine to check for that. And it would have been virtually impossible, they would have had to have been looking for. a needle in a haystack and knowing where the needle was, and still trying to find it.”

Bumgardner says he’s spoken to people in the community who not only remember that day, but remember the people who were killed. Some were classmates or members of the same church. Some were neighbors. One man lost both his parents.

He says the memory is so strong, decades later, that incidents like the one in Baltimore remind people of it.

“I’m sure for people in Point Pleasant who remember, December the 15th 1967, that anytime there’s any of these bridge incidents, collapses, problems with where they have to shut down bridges, even where they’re even no deaths involved. I’m sure it takes all those people in Point Pleasant back to 1967. And they remember exactly where they were and how they felt right then.”

As with the Silver Bridge then, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Baltimore collapse now. It could take the agency as long as two years to produce a report.

And from there, changes will be made to improve bridge safety from the lessons learned.

Nucor Steel West Virginia Officially Unveiled In Point Pleasant

Nucor Steel West Virginia was a new brand introduced publicly Wednesday. It’s one that will resonate deeply in the state of West Virginia, John Farris, its vice president and general manager said.

John Farris, vice president and general manager, Nucor Steel West Virginia

“It feels good to be able to finally say those four words together publicly,” Farris said.

Nucor, a Charlotte, NC-based manufacturing company, announced plans to build a $2.7 billion steel mill facility near Apple Grove in Mason County at a press conference at Point Pleasant High School. It’s expected to be operational by 2024.

The mill will have the capacity to produce up to three million tons of sheet steel per year for several markets, including automotive, appliance, HVAC, heavy equipment, agricultural, transportation and construction.

Farris also confirmed Nucor is considering building a transloading and processing center in the northern part of the state in order to create a broader logistics network to better serve its customers in the upper Midwest and Northeast regions.

Gov. Jim Justice’s office released a statement on his behalf. The Governor did not attend the presser after receiving a positive PCR test for COVID-19 Tuesday. He is in isolation.

“This is a landmark announcement in the history of our state,” Justice stated. “Nucor’s brand new facility is going to be a key part of West Virginia’s DNA long into the future.”

Nucor is the largest steel producer in the United States and the largest recycler of scrap in North America. In September, Nucor announced plans to build the steel mill in either Ohio, Pennsylvania or West Virginia, according to the Associated Press.

Justice called the facility the “largest economic development project” in state history.

Nucor officials also confirmed the West Virginia facility will be its biggest investment ever.

An economic impact statement for the project approximates a $25 billion realization over a 10-year span.

Nucor employs 28,000 teammates at approximately 300 facilities located primarily in North America, and they’re “among the highest paid and most productive in the steel industry,” according to Nucor.

Ahead of the announcement, Justice called a special session of the legislature this week to establish providing financial incentives and tax credits. Passed by both chambers and dubbed the West Virginia Industrial Advancement Act, the action provides incentives based on investment and employment numbers including $315 million in matching money and 50 percent tax credits against capital investments.

Going forward, the program will be also be available for other large manufacturing facilities willing to locate in West Virginia.

Nucor is expected to provide approximately 800 jobs on the project expected to break ground “mid year (2022)” according to Farris.

An estimated 1,000 construction jobs would also be created over the next two years as the facility is built.

The project could be completed by Dec. 31, 2025 if plans according to the memorandum of understanding between the state and Nucor remain unchanged.

Of the nearly $3 billion already promised for the facility, Farris said “that is just the start,” of investment dollars in West Virginia.

Dependents of Nucor have been awarded more than $110 million in educational scholarships over three decades. Farris committed to carry on investments in the families of West Virginians as well. He said he has meetings set up with officials from Marshall University, West Virginia State University and several community and technical colleges in the coming weeks.

Point Pleasant River Museum Breaks Ground On New Building

Museum staff broke ground on Monday for a new building to house the Point Pleasant River Museum and Lakin Ray Cook Learning Center.

Following a fire that gutted the Old Nease Building, the previous home of the museum, the museum staff has been working to raise funds for a new building.

Smoke rolling out of the roof of the Point Pleasant River Museum on the day of the fire.

“Once it is built and fully operational, you’re going to be able to experience a ‘wow.’” said James McCormick, executive director of the museum. “You’re going to learn things about the history of the museum, the history of the river.”

Many of the artifacts were saved after the fire for the reopened museum. The new building will resemble a flatboat like those that used to travel up and down the Kanawha and Ohio rivers.

“The architecture of the design of this building, I mean it’s gorgeous,” McCormick said.

The facilities will also house the Lakin Ray Cook Learning Center, a training center with riverboat simulators for inland waterway navigation, as well as an attraction for the general public.

There are only six training centers in the country and only three on the east side of the Mississippi River. McCormick said the new facility will offer a better electrical situation for the simulators and put Point Pleasant on the map as a designation for riverboat training.

In addition to training, McCormick said he also plans to offer history preservation classes at the center. McCormick hosts a show about rare artifacts and discoveries on West Virginia Library Television and said he will use that knowledge to expand the museum’s archaeological operation.

“This area always, always turns up layers of artifacts,” said McCormick. “The river is loaded not only with artifacts but history, because there was so much that was going on, that was dependent on the river.”

Point Pleasant, and its waterways, share a storied kinship with America’s history.

The town earned its name after George Washington commented that the intersection of Ohio and Kanawha rivers was a “pleasant point” in 1770. The Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 pre-dated the battle of Lexington and Concord and is considered by some to be the first battle of the American Revolution.

In 1908, the U.S. Senate recognized the Battle of Point Pleasant as the first of the American Revolution. The measure failed in the House of Representatives.

For two decades, museum founder and former executive director Jack Fowler has chronicled the history of West Virginia’s waterways. He passed away last year at the age of 85.

“Our prayer was that he could be the first to open that door,” Point Pleasant Mayor Brian Billings said to the Huntington Herald-Dispatch at the time. “Now he’s not.”

Construction on the building is scheduled to be completed in August and McCormick said the museum will reopen to the public in the fall.

When that day comes, he looks forward to welcoming the community back. Through teaching history classes for kids, he said he’s seen the impact of hands-on history education.

“We want to work with the local community, we want to work with the kids in the area,” he said. “I want to make history come alive.”

The Silver Bridge Collapses Killing 46: December 15, 1967

December 15, 1967, was one of the darkest days in West Virginia history. Sadly, it was only the first of many tragic days that West Virginians would suffer.

The Silver Bridge, which connected Point Pleasant with Gallipolis, Ohio, had opened to traffic in 1928. It was the first bridge in the nation to use an innovative eyebar-link suspension system rather than a traditional wire-cable suspension.

But one of those eyebars had a small, unseen defect. The faulty eyebar eventually cracked and began to corrode, out of sight from the public or bridge inspectors. At about 5 p.m. on December 15, the eyebar failed, setting off a series of other failures that caused the bridge to collapse.

It was rush hour, and the bridge was packed with cars. Thirty-one vehicles plunged into the icy waters of the Ohio River. Twenty-one people survived, but 46 died in the disaster.

The Silver Bridge tragedy led to national changes in how bridges were inspected. At St. Marys—some 100 miles upstream from Point Pleasant—another 40-year-old bridge of the same design was immediately closed and later demolished.

October 10, 1774: The Battle of Point Pleasant is Fought

On October 10, 1774, perhaps the most important battle ever fought in present-day West Virginia occurred at Point Pleasant. It was preceded by a long spring and summer of deadly violence between settlers and Indians. In response to these hostilities, Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore dispatched two armies to attack Shawnee villages in Ohio. Dunmore personally led the northern army, while the southern column was under Colonel Andrew Lewis.

Shawnee Chief Cornstalk closely scouted both forces. He decided to attack Lewis’s troops at Point Pleasant before they could unite with Dunmore’s army. During the battle, both sides numbered about 1,000, and the struggle was intense. Much of the fighting involved brutal hand-to-hand combat. Late in the day, Cornstalk misread a flanking movement by the Virginians as a sign of reinforcements. He surrendered the battlefield and retreated across the Ohio River.

The resulting treaty, which was signed five months before the Revolutionary War began, brought relative peace to the region. Although the truce proved temporary, it kept American soldiers from fighting a two-front war and allowed them to focus on the British for the first two years of the conflict.