By: Sean DeLancey, Jarrod Clay | Posted: July 1, 2016 | Source: WCHSTV
CLENDENIN, WV (WCHS/WVAH) — Four generations of a Clendenin family are putting their lives back together after losing everything to floodwaters.
When most people experience tragedy they lean on family for support, but this family can’t because they all lost their homes.
Clendenin is still in ruins. Hundreds of homes are gutted and no longer fit to live in. (more…)
By: Alexandra Zaslow | Posted: July 1, 2016 at 4:03 pm | Source: Today.com
Nick Scott was on his way to a local church to help those affected by the flooding in West Virginia, when he encountered a heartbreaking sight.
While sitting in traffic with dozens of shampoo bottles, clothing and food in the backseat of his car, he spotted a young boy, Michael Swiney, standing in the mud watching his family members attempt to salvage cherished possessions from their Clendenin, West Virginia, home. (more…)
By: Elizabeth Sanders LaFleur | Posted: July 1, 2016 | Source: Greenville News
Jonathan and Melissa Cleghorn were out of town when devastating floods hit West Virginia late last week.
Cleghorn says a neighbor called to let him know the river behind their home in Clendenin, West Virginia was rising. Cleghorn says the family checked a river meter on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website and saw the water was rapidly rising. Over the next hours and days, Cleghorn said they watched as the river peaked at nearly 33 and a half feet. That peak broke a record from the 1880s and was more than 14 feet above flood stage. (more…)
By: Sgt. Zoe Morris | Posted: July 1, 2016 | Source: U.S. Army
CLENDENIN, W.Va. – When the flood waters began rising in West Virginia on the night of June 23, the call went out the Clendenin Fire Department’s swift-water rescue unit — one of the best in the state, according to Kevin Clendenin, who is not only fire chief but was also out on a rescue mission that evening.
Within hours, those team members would be working with West Virginia National Guard members on countless rescue missions. (more…)
By: Sam Hodges | Posted: June 28, 2016 | Source: The United Methodist Church
The Rev. Scott Ferguson was away on vacation when the floods hit Clendenin, West Virginia, last week. When he finally got a look at the parsonage of Clendenin United Methodist Church, he realized he and his wife wouldn’t be staying there for a while longer.
“We took about three and a half feet of water in our home,” Ferguson said. “Everything downstairs is lost.”
But he’s made progress with mud removal, and he’s determined that he and his congregation will stay the course spiritually during a hard time.
“We just want to make sure God is praised even through the storm,” he said. (more…)
By: Dan Heyman | Posted: June 26, 2016 | Source: New York Times
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Cole Chapman and his wife, Silvia Gabriel Fields, were having coffee on their deck when a nearby creek suddenly burst its banks, sending them and their two children sprinting to their pickup truck for safety.
“We heard cracking and popping, and a sheet of water just started pouring into the yard,” Mr. Chapman said Saturday night. “It was like something totally exploded.”
Minutes later, their yard submerged beneath gushing, knee-deep water, the family raced over muddy roads to higher ground.
“My son was in the back seat, saying, ‘We’re going to die, we’re going to die,’” Mr. Chapman recalled. “I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I sure hope you’re not right.’” (more…)
West Virginia State Trooper C.S. Hartman walks from a shed that he checked out as he and other crews search homes on Saturday in Rainelle, W.Va. by Steve Helber via AP.
By: Merrit Kennedy | Posted: June 26, 2016 | Source: NPR
President Obama has declared a major disaster in West Virginia after flash flooding left at least 23 people dead and devastated communities.
The historic floods are the worst in a century for portions of the state, the governor has said, and destroyed or seriously damaged at least 100 homes. Water levels reached as high as rooftops in some areas. More than 30,000 people are without power, according to the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. (more…)
Photo Credit: Sam Owens, Charleston Gazette-Mail | Taylor Self of Charleston lays pictures out to dry as she takes a break from cleaning Sherry and Kelly Cole’s house, who are her best friend’s parents, in Clendenin, W.Va., on Saturday, June 25, 2016. Self drove from Charleston early Saturday morning once she saw pictures of the damage done by flooding on Sherry Cole’s Facebook page.
By: Jake Jarvis | Posted: June 25, 2016 | Source: WV Gazette-Mail
Sherry Cole just wants to have a clean house again where she can shower.
Mud and water covered absolutely everything in her home on Saturday. It stuck to the floors, the walls, the plates and even the pool table. Volunteers from a church in Parkersburg — absolute strangers to the woman before the flooding — showed up to her home Saturday morning with buckets and shovels, ready to clean anything they could.
Everything left downstairs that hadn’t been washed away by the floodwaters that ripped through the house Thursday night and Friday morning was thrown away. Everything. (more…)
By: Erik Ortiz, Sean Federico-O’Murchu, Jay Varela and Ben Rappaport | Posted: June 25, 2016 at 8:23 AM EST | Source: NBC News
Huge floods ravaging West Virginia have killed at least 23 people, stranded hundreds and left tens of thousands without power overnight, officials said late Friday.
The threat of pop-up showers and overflowing rivers was still a concern late, and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said that search and rescue efforts remained a priority to help people trapped in swamped homes and cars. He said 200 National Guard members have been deployed in eight counties with about 300 more authorized to help with ongoing relief. (more…)
Kathy Bostic sits on a torn roof Friday afternoon as she looks through a muddied plastic tote full of family photographs that she rescued from her home along Jordan Creek Road in Elkview. The totes were sitting in her house as heavy rainfall and flooding hit the Elkview area on Thursday. “Everything else can be replaced,” Bostic said. “Lives can’t and pictures can’t.” See a video at wvgazettemail.com. Photo Credit: Sam Owens | Gazette-Mail photos
By: Daniel Desrochers | Posted: June 24, 2016 | Source: WV Gazette-Mail
Kathy Bostic’s photographs were spread across the roof of her house, which is now where her walkway should have been.
She moved in and out of her house, which had been destroyed by flooding in Jordan Creek, trying to get to her pictures and important papers to see what she could save.
“Everything else can be replaced,” Bostic said. “Lives can’t and pictures can’t.”
After severe flooding devastated all of West Virginia, the state announced Friday that 22 people had died from the weather. But there was no number yet on just how many people have lost everything they owned. (more…)
