10:06am: Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval

Pocahontas County, Webster County added to Federal Disaster Declaration

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — What the flood left behind is becoming more of a focus area in West Virginia’s hardest hit counties nearly a week after the storms.

“We’ve got a significant amount of debris and it’s going to take take a coordinated effort to address that,” said Major General James Hoyer, state adjutant general.

Locations like this one in Elkview are becoming collection points for flood debris.

“(It’s) Not just the debris from structures, but there will have to a coordinated effort to address debris in streams and waterways to ensure that we don’t create more flooding during the next rainstorms.”

Debris removal continued Wednesday as the Federal Disaster Declaration was expanded to include ten counties with the additions of Pocahontas County and Webster County.

“Webster County is a heartbreak area (with) incredible devastation,” said 3rd District Congressman Evan Jenkins on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”

The Federal Disaster Declaration previously included Nicholas, Kanawha, Greenbrier, Fayette, Clay, Roane, Summers and Monroe Counties.

As of Wednesday morning, FEMA had opened a Disaster Recovery Center at the Kanawha County Schools Warehouse in Crede by Elk Elementary Center. Operation hours are 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily.

In Greenbrier County, a FEMA mobile site was scheduled to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at 65 W. Main Street in White Sulphur Springs.

FEMA registrations can be completed in person, by calling 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) or online at DisasterAssistance.gov.

For flood debris removal, the state Department of Environmental Protection had set up collection points at the following sites:

CLAY COUNTY

– Big Otter, DOH stockpile, Clinic Rd
– Pearson Lumber
– Lizemore, old Murphy’s store
– Wallback, Park and Ride, Summers Fork Rd
– Widen, top of the hill
– Indore, Middle Creek Church parking lot
– Procious, foot of Procious Hill

WEBSTER COUNTY

– Bolair, old Bolair tipple
– Bergoo, old scale house, Plum St.

NICHOLAS COUNTY

– Birch River, Volunteer FD
– Richwood, Richwood Armory
– Belva, Auxier Welding

GREENBRIER COUNTY

– White Sulphur Springs, Big Draft Rd
– Alderson, Methodist Church
– Rupert, Mundy Park
– Rainelle, Industrial Park

KANAWHA COUNTY

– Clendenin, Family Medical and Park and Ride
– Elkview, Elkview Middle School and Park and Ride

As for where the tons of debris will eventually go, “Right now, there are a combination of transfer stations that are being used and then, on the interagency side, DEP is looking at a variety of options,” Hoyer said.

More than 500 members of the West Virginia Army National Guard and West Virginia Air National Guard, many of them dedicated to debris removal, were on flood duty on Wednesday and as many as 200 others could potentially be called up in the coming days.

Private contractors are part of debris removal efforts as well.

Overall, the thousands of people in flood recovery are doing the best they can, Jenkins said.

“One phrase I keep hearing time and time again, people who are standing there in inches of mud in their house, all of their personal belongings out in the front yard, and they look at you in the eye and they say, ‘You know, it could have been worse.'”





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