As Wednesday morning daylight spread over areas of central West Virginia pummeled by storms, local officials are fearful of what may be exposed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve lived here for 37 years,” Buckhannon Mayor Robbie Skinner told West Virginia MetroNews on Tuesday night. The town of just over 5,000 residents sits about 85 miles northeast of the state capital, Charleston.
Historic flooding on Tuesday prompted Gov. Patrick Morrisey to declare a state of emergency for all 55 counties in West Virginia, as severe storms also spawned tornadoes and damaging winds from Kentucky to New Jersey.
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“Numerous roads have been flooded, washed out, or otherwise rendered impassable, while emergency responders continue conducting rescues, damage assessments and life-safety operations throughout the county,” the Upshur County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said in a statement Wednesday.
The agency also warned that phone services in Upshur County — including 911 — may experience delays or outages due to disruptions caused by the flooding.
About 300 West Virginia National Guard members are expected in the hardest-hit areas Wednesday morning as swiftwater rescue teams, engineers and other resources are deployed to assist local emergency crews.
‘I’ve never seen the water rise as fast’
Storms dropped more than 5 inches of rain in about six hours in parts of Upshur County Tuesday afternoon. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency, the highest level of flood warning, and labeled the event as a “particularly dangerous situation.”
Jonny Reed grabbed his young son and rushed out of his house in Buckhannon Tuesday evening as floodwaters rose. One minute after he dashed off his porch, a storage shed floated by, his home surveillance video showed. It was followed shortly after by a felled tree and an upright all-terrain vehicle that looked as though it was driving itself, dragged along by the current.
“I’ve never seen the water rise as fast as it did today,” Reed said in a Tuesday post on Facebook, later telling CNN that his family was safe and the damage to his home was minor.
A video from Buckhannon shot by Evan Bacorn showed a vehicle flooded up to its windows as a garbage container floated down the street. Some drivers tried to power their trucks through the flooding as water splashed over their running boards.
The flooding reached historic levels. The Sand Run stream gauge near Buckhannon crested above 10.6 feet Tuesday night, shattering the previous record of 8.3 feet set during the devastating 1985 flood. It was the first time in roughly 80 years of record keeping that the gauge had reached major flood stage. In 1985, severe flooding in Upshur County killed 47 people and destroyed thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses.
A five-block stretch of homes along the Buckhannon River was evacuated early Wednesday morning, while all other county residents are advised to shelter in place.
Assessing the extent of the damage was made more difficult Wednesday by communications outages.
“Many cell phone carriers and internet providers are experiencing service interruptions, or no service at all,” Skinner posted to Facebook.
The state of emergency allows state agencies to coordinate resources and deploy personnel as needed.
The governor’s office said the hardest-hit areas included Lewis, Pleasants and Upshur counties, where flooding and related damage have triggered ongoing emergency response efforts, including dozens of water rescues.
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More than 13,000 customers across five central West Virginia counties were without power Wednesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. Nearly 10 miles of Interstate 79 were closed Wednesday morning between the communities of Weston and Jane Lew in Lewis County, the state Division of Highways said.
The West Virginia Emergency Management Division opened a shelter at Lewis County High School for residents displaced by the flooding.
“The devastation across our county is extensive. Businesses, homes, vehicles, and countless personal belongings have been damaged or destroyed, and the full extent of the losses is still unknown,” Lewis County Commissioner Agnes Quinn Queen posted to Facebook early Wednesday morning, saying water rescues had been going on for hours.
Even as offers of help pour in, officials in Upshur County are urging people to wait until there is a better sense of the ((extent of)) damage.
“At this time, however, volunteers and organizations are asked not to self-deploy to affected areas,” the Upshur County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said. “Uncoordinated response efforts can create additional safety hazards, increase traffic congestion and complicate ongoing emergency operations.”
Tornadoes and damaging winds out east
Rain has largely moved out of West Virginia, but rivers and streams in the central part of the state are forecast to keep rising as runoff moves through the watershed.
The same storm system responsible for the flooding also produced multiple tornadoes and damaging winds farther north and east. Tornadoes were reported in Kentucky, Ohio and New Jersey on Tuesday, including one in Clermont County, Ohio.
Denise Davis, who lives in Clermont County, told CNN affiliate WKRC she brought her grandchildren to the basement as soon as she heard the tornado warning.
“The winds picked up, the lights were flickering, and then I heard a real loud bang, which of course was the tree falling onto the house,” she said.
Davis added that everyone was in a safe position under the basement stairs when the tree fell.
“I cried, and then the grandbabies were crying,” she said, recounting the moment she first saw the tree on her house. “I just don’t know what to do from here.”
Two tornadoes were also observed in northern New Jersey after supercell thunderstorms moved over the area.
As of Tuesday evening, about 110,000 people in the storm-affected areas were without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
Flash flood warnings were issued for New York City Tuesday afternoon, but were lifted later in the evening.
New York City’s sewer system, built more than a century ago, is designed to handle only about 1.75 inches of rainfall per hour.
In recent years, as extreme weather events have become more common, the system has shown its limits. When it backs up under the pressure of large amounts of rainfall in short periods of time, the result is flooded streets in low-lying areas, homes and subway stations.
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