By Amelia A. Pridemore
Register-Herald Reporter
BECKLEY — Raleigh County was slammed late Friday night and early Saturday with flooding from a combination of torrential rain and lingering piles of snow on already-saturated ground, leaving one person dead and a volunteer firefighter missing.
Floodwaters submerged communities and a woman was reported dead in Bradley. Authorities also launched a rescue mission to find the Kanawha County firefighter reported missing while trying to evacuate residents in Beaver.
Gov. Joe Manchin was flown over the Beaver area Saturday afternoon and was later on the ground at Glen Morgan.
Manchin toured the hard-hit areas with Jimmy Gianato, director of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The group was surveying damage.
“It’s just an absolutely awful situation,” Manchin said. “We lost a lady in the Bradley area overnight, and the search is still on for a missing volunteer firefighter who was assisting in the rescue of citizens in the Beaver area. We’re hoping for the best.”
Manchin said the missing firefighter from the Glasgow Volunteer Fire Department in Kanawha County was part of a swift water rescue team working in the Beaver area. He and two others were in a boat when the motor struck a piece of submerged material.
The governor said the motor’s power went out and that the boat drifted away and capsized. The other two team members made it to safety.
Personnel were undertaking a search and rescue mission for the Glasgow firefighter, said Marty Agee, deputy director of the Raleigh County Emergency Operations Center. The firefighter was working to evacuate a family near Violet Lane in Beaver early Saturday when he went into the water.
Firefighters, National Park Service rangers and National Guard personnel in a Black Hawk helicopter were searching the area for him. Agee said personnel planned to continue the search after dark. They were setting up emergency generator lighting along creek banks, and waters were receding.
In Charleston, the state Senate observed a moment of silence during its Saturday afternoon floor session for the firefighter and the woman. Sen. Mike Green, D-Raleigh, said he had been in touch with emergency responders and they did not expect to find the firefighter alive.
The confirmed fatality occurred early Saturday when the woman parked her car in the North Sandbranch Road area and tried to reach her residence on foot, Agee said. Her body was later recovered.
The storm took a deadly turn on the 17th anniversary of the March 13, 1993, blizzard, later dubbed the “superstorm,” that dumped 30 inches of snow on Beckley.
Agee said the Beaver and Bradley areas appeared to be the hardest-hit. Several road closings were reported, including Airport Road in Beaver, near 84 Lumber. U.S. 19 was blocked in Glen Morgan, but it was reportedly reopened by late Saturday afternoon. Pluto Road was closed, but it had reopened as of Saturday afternoon.
“Then, there was the camp at Sullivan,” she said. “Sullivan camp was slammed. We had to evacuate families that had five to six young children.”
Agee noted the Coal River area was largely spared.
Lt. Col. Mike Cadle, public affairs officer for the West Virginia National Guard, confirmed a liaison team was at the Raleigh County EOC Saturday. Besides using the Black Hawk in the search for the missing firefighter, the Guard was also working to survey the situation to see if its resources could benefit the county.
Capt. Gary Raines of the Beckley Fire Department said the department was “inundated” with calls. He said firefighters had mainly been pumping basements and shutting off gas. He acknowledged the gas shut-offs did not sit well with some people, but if gas wells malfunction, there is danger for carbon monoxide poisoning or even explosions.
“More than anything, they’re cold and they want heat,” he said. “I can’t blame them. ... But the gas being shut off is for their safety.”
The hardest-hit streets appeared to be Nebraska and Hartley avenues, Raines said. The notorious area of Robert C. Byrd Drive near Ewart Avenue flooded again. But this time, even it was worse than Raines had ever seen it.
“I’d say you had 10 feet of water there, and that area has flooded many times,” he said.
Raines urged people to never drive through high water and to especially never try to drive past emergency responders’ roadblocks.
“If you have water 6 inches deep, you could float a Hummer,” he said. “And if you see emergency vehicle traffic — those cones and vehicles are there for your safety. Don’t try to circumvent them.
“Water is a very destructive force. It’s as every bit destructive as fire. It could get you.”
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Meteorologists say the worst could be over.
Raleigh and Fayette counties received about 2 to 3 inches of rain overnight, said Ken Batty, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Charleston. Beckley’s rainfall between 7 a.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday was 3.07 inches, and Oak Hill’s for the same period was 2.95. Most of that fell overnight Friday.
Although the Richwood area of Nicholas County received only 1.12 inches of rain, Batty noted the snowpack there was heavier. If Friday night’s storm system had moved farther north, Richwood would have probably been pulverized.
The Bluestone River southeast of Beckley hit a record 17.18 feet at 4 a.m. Saturday, surpassing the previous high of 15.82 feet in April 1977, the weather service said. Flood stage is 10 feet.
Fans attending the girls basketball championships at the Charleston Civic Center were advised to keep their cars out of the parking lot adjacent to the Elk River, which was rising at the rate of several inches per hour and expected to flood the lot.
By Saturday afternoon, most small streams had receded, Batty said. The exception were streams at the mouth of rivers. But most rivers in the region had already crested. The New River at Thurmond crested around noon Saturday.
River levels should decrease by today, he said.
Light rain and drizzle should linger through today, but no significant problems should result, Batty said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
— E-mail: apridemore@register-herald.com
