SPENCER, W.Va. — It doesn’t appear there was enough damage to West Virginia highways during Thursday’s flood to apply for federal disaster assistance.
State Division of Highways spokesman Brent Walker said even though the FEMA threshold may not be met the cleanup work that has to take place is significant.
He said contractors will begin work on two sections of U.S. Route 119 next week that were damaged in separate hillside slips.
“There was about a 60-foot section in Roane County and then we had another one on U.S. Route 119 in Lewis County,” Walker said. “So we’ll have contractors out there getting those things repaired.”
The DOH also had a communications tower it uses in Gilmer County to come down during the storm. The agency had switched to another tower by Friday afternoon.
The state Office of Emergency Services was in Spencer Friday doing damage assessments for a possible federal disaster assistance request.
Spencer Mayor Terry Williams said water got into at least 100 homes.
“Most of those never have water,” he said. “We have street damage and storm drain damage. This is the highest water we’ve had in well over 100 years.”
At one point during the storm Spencer was surrounded by water. There was no way in and no way out.
“That was a different feeling and a different view and a different picture for us to look at,” the mayor said. “Thank God it stopped when it did stop.”
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said Friday on MetroNews Talkline the top priority was getting rid of the flooded debris