LOGAN, W.Va. — Forty Logan County residents were evacuated from their homes Wednesday with no firm timeline on when the only way in or out would be repaired.
The residents live on Madison Creek Road near Lyburn. The road is covered with a mudslide with an unstable hillside above. Those residents met with the DOH Wednesday and were urged to take advantage of the evacuation option and some did.
The Logan County Emergency Ambulance Service Authority took about 40 residents out by boat on the Guyandotte River. The DOH will pay for temporary housing and transportation. The DOH has no clear timeline on when the road will be repaired.
The first evacuations began Tuesday evening with a man who had gone without dialysis for nearly a week and it was critical he make it to the hospital for a treatment. The other two evacuees were a couple. The woman went into labor and ambulance authority went into high gear getting her and her husband from one side of the Guyandotte River to the other.
“Well, she made it to the hospital before she had the baby,” said Roger Bryant the Executive Director of LEASA. “But it was close!”
Bryant said a river crossing is not the ideal way to get people out of the area at this time of year.
“The river is up and it’s swift and it’s cold,” Bryant said. “So there is some risk involved. I really don’t like taking people up and down the river unless we have to.”