Senator Capito visits McDowell County and learned about flood recovery needs

Helping southern West Virginia’s flood victims get their lives back on track and finding ways to keep last February’s flooding from happening again were goals Monday when U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., visited McDowell County and saw the challenges firsthand.

Capito traveled to Welch where she made several stops and focused on ongoing flood recovery and infrastructure upgrades.

While visiting Welch, Capito met with Mayor Harold McBride and discussed a number of topics, including a bridge infrastructure project. Capito stopped with McBride at this underpass, located on Route 16 between downtown Welch and Welch Community Hospital, and was told how it often floods when the neighboring Tug River overflows.

The the underpass floods, the hospital is cut off from the rest of the county, McBride said. This is why flood mitigation is important.

“Instead of cleaning the mud up and waiting until the next round, we’ve got to learn from these things and do some things to help us through the next round,” he said. “So I wanted to talk to her about our bridge over the underpass down here. When it floods, we can’t get to the hospital and it’s very dangerous. And then there’s a couple of places where we could build some flood walls and save an enormous amount of heartache and money every time.”

Next, Capito visteded to the McDowell County 911 Center and Sheriff’s Office to discuss flood damage and ongoing recovery efforts. Sheriff James “Boomer” Muncy describe the flood damage – which destroyed thousands of dollars in equipment – and told her how his office hopes to find a new location. The visit concluded at the Welch Armory where Senator Capito met with local officials and agencies where they discussed recovery efforts that are already underway, as well as the community’s infrastructure needs.

“The recent flooding in southern West Virginia was devastating, and it continues to impact the way businesses and the local economy function today,” Capito said. “I am grateful to Mayor McBride and other local leaders in Welch for the opportunity to tour recovery efforts and discuss with them directly the needs they have. While we’ve made progress in rebuilding efforts, we still have more work to do, and I am committed to doing what I can to help in this effort.”

Besides the material damage, the Feb. 15 flood resulted in three McDowell County deaths, Capito said.

“So we want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she said. “The FEMA folks have been terrific. FEMA knows West Virginia and cares about West Virginia, so I think it’s been really good at looking at Individual Assistance but also looking, working with the mayor here, at ways to be more preventative and more resilient.”

On Feb. 26, President Trump approved Individual Assistance n McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, and Wyoming counties. The Individual Assistance Program provides funds to individuals experiencing significant damage to homes or property. The deadline to apply for these funds is April 28.

The president approved Public Assistance on March 19 in Greenbrier, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Monroe, Summers, Wayne, and Wyoming counties.

On April 1, the president’s Major Disaster Declaration was amended to include Public Assistance for Raleigh and Boone counties as well as Individual Assistance for Raleigh County.

The new Raleigh County Disaster Recovery Center opens today at 1224 Airport Road.

Businesses that flooded during the Feb. 15 storm are working gradually to get their doors open again. For some, floods are nothing new.

Markella Gianato, wife of Kimball Fire Chief Jimmy Gianato and an owner of the Ya’Sou Restaurant in Kimball, said they were in the process of completely gutting the restaurant and getting the floors replaced.

“It’s not near as bad as the 2001 and 2 flood were because at that point we had between 7 and 7-and-a-half feet in the restaurant,” she said. “This time there was probably like 2 to 2-and-a- half, but it was enough to cause major damage. Refrigeration units, my stove, the grills and all that stuff had to go. We’re in the process of figuring out the next direction. The week before before this happened was the 78th anniversary that the business had been in my family. My grandfather and my dad bought it in 1947, so Feb. 7 was the 78th anniversary.”

Bobby Bowman, McDowell County’s Emergency Management Director, said the county was seeking help for stream restoration efforts that include clearing out silt and debris.

“Well, we’re just looking for some help, some stream restoration and things like that,” Bowman said. “Get some grants, some help with getting the stream restoration people in here to restore our streams and hopefully that will work out for us. We have a lot of our streams that are at bank-level now. Some of them are actually above bank level and if we don’t get that taken care of we’re going to have some flooding issues in the near future.”

Recovering completely last February’s flood will take months, he said.

“People’s pretty resilient in our county,” Bowman said. “They know what they need and they’ll get to working on it, so it’s pretty good.”

Meanwhile, flood relief work will continue.

“Hopefully we’ll get back to normal, as normal as it can be for us, again,” Bowman said.