Ashley Rutherford from Berwind, W.Va., and her four children have been living from plastic bulkheads since February when a devastating flood was swept through McDowell County. (Sydnei Tatum for West Virginia Watch)
McDowell County, West Virginia – as the flood water swept McDowell County, West Virginia, in February Ashley Rutherford was sitting in her wheelchair and could not get out of her house when the water came through the door. One of her sons put rubber boots on her to cover her legs while the water came in.
Nine weeks later, the carpet in the house is still saturated. The wooden floor of the kitchen is damp and kinks, and Rutherford’s wheelchair stuck in a recent hole in front of the sink. The rooms on the ground floor are full of things of their family and displace their way to move up.
“I am overwhelmed,” said Rutherford, 33, mother of four children. “We are currently living from dead. My daughter cannot find the right outfit that she wants to wear to school.”
Rutherford lives in Berwind, one of the southernmost cities in the impoverished district. In his hollers, the residents – many older people – are waiting for help. You need federal aid. A stove. Volunteers to help them remove the hefty mud from their basements.
There was not nearly enough help, and people feel forgotten by disaster relief agencies, non -profit organizations and state government leaders in Charleston.
Many of McDowell’s residents cannot leave their long-standing family houses, which means that they are still in damp structures-still without heat or Flowing water – while mold is used.
Dale Blevins, 70, stood in her damp basement, where spots formed on the concrete walls made of crystallized white shape. Volunteers cleared their basement after the flood; She didn’t know who would come in to remove the shape. Her husband is dependent on an oxygen tank, and the shape was probably a danger to his health.
“I hate to ask for help,” she said, adding that she had not heard from any local or state officials. “Nobody ever came here.”
The national guard, church groups and other volunteers got through the way The district to help. These efforts have largely dried out. The local churches, many with older communities, are only limited as they can help. Hundreds of houses still have to be cleared and cleaned, say the residents.
“We need the boots on” It is difficult work, it is brutal work and very time -consuming … I don’t know whether some recognize how urgent the need is. “
Sydnei Tatum, 33, is a local business owner and photographer who took the pictures for this story. In the past two months she has wiped out basements, distributed food gift cards and created lists of residents who need everything from beds to refrigerators.
“I will fight for these people, because otherwise they don’t do anyone for them,” she said.
Tatum made the lack of recovery effort for the failure to prioritize McDowell County. They had played down the crisis, she said.
“Just because nobody is interested in the poorest areas of the district and we are there,” she said.
Governor Patrick Morrisey was in February said the state “Was able to act quickly” Inquiry A Federal disaster declaration for the development of resources for the affected districts.
“We would like to make sure that we help these southern counties to recover,” said Morrisey at a press conference February 20th After a few parts of McDowell.
His spokesman did not answer questions about this story about the status of the recovery efforts.
The floods, which Three people killedhappened during the legislative period; It was not a substantial topic among the legislators.
There is no committed financing in the Recently approved state budget For McDowell’s flood.
Limited district funds, endless cleanup
The 73 -year -old Carol Lester stood on her veranda in Bartley and overlooked the washed -out sandof. She had survived the flood and had to be saved by two youthful men when water hurried into her kitchen and her living room. She remembered how 911 could not help her, then two men appeared and wore her husband, who is disabled, five hours through the forest in the chilly rain.
“We went through five floods. This was the worst,” said Lester, who has been in her house for 51 years. “It seemed as if you could hear the devil and its demons in this water.”
A destroyed sofa set was rejected in front of her house. It had to be pulled away. She waited for a plywood delivery and hoped that her family members could tear open their water floors.
Nobody had been in her house since the flood, said Lester.
Nobody cares, I tell you, day and time.
– Carol Lester
McDowell already had difficulties in front of the flood. It is one of the poorest counties in the country, and some residents had no tidy drinking water for decades. Much of the district is located on a flood level, and the floods have previously been fired. Less than 18,000 people now live in the county because the mining jobs have dried up.
The population drop has affected that the district finances are dependent on local taxpayers, and Brooks explained that the majority of the money collected by personal property tax goes to the education committee.
It’s not enough, he said.
Thirty -six private bridges were washed out in the flood, some of which cannot be covered by the Emergency Management Assistance (Fema) or the money of the district. Some bridges can never be repaired.
“I wish God that we had the financing that we could start repairing it.
Brooks Was frustrated about social media comments that said that the district or the state did not do enough. Morrisey was helpful, he said, and the necessary government processes can be ponderous.
“I am bombarded as well as the other commissioners with more questions than answers at this time,” he said. “It is not the case that we don’t try to collect the answers, or we try to shake off these things. But we are a small district and we often have no resources.”
Fema what Set his efforts In the county, And voluntary organizations that are busy in Disaster (Voad) did not give back any inquiries for a comment for this story. Some inhabitants said they didn’t expect much help from the Federal Aid.
Water filled water harbors a future flood risk
The soils are still damp in Linda Wood’s house in the municipality of Berwind.
“I will need new floors like linoleum,” said Woods, 61. She lost her stove, lawn mowers, clothing, shoes and more in the floods.
“I’m worried that the moisture rises under the mattress and causes mold,” she added.
Rain is forecast this weekend in McDowell, which scares forests. She pointed to a nearby stream that was filled with rubble from the flood. Without clarifying it, she said, another flood would probably hit your community at any time.
The region’s stream beds have no longer been dredged or restored since the flood of 1977, WVVA reported. MP Shelley Moore Capito, Rw.Va., recently visited McDowell and promised that money for cleaning the currents in the hope of preventing future floods.
At the beginning of this year Morrisey Didn’t request Financing the efforts of flood protection by the state resilience office. The Republican majority in the Delegate House rejected A democratic legislator proposal to put $ 50 million in the state budget to protect against future floods.
Politics and state financing are not the main topics of the conversation among the inhabitants of McDowell in April. The neighbors wonder how they tidy their basements and remove the mountains of ruins that are scattered next to streets. There are no gigantic garbage containers in the region, and the district would have to work with the state to create a designated dumping site.
Lester looked at a Holly -Bush in her garden that had survived the tide. Her husband bought it years ago.
“God left this Holly Bush for a certain reason. It survived the storm, but it still survived,” she said. “Every morning, when I get up, I look at the little Holly -Bush. I get my strength from it.”
They enable our work.
