CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A dozen days after the June flood, more than ten emergency shelters remained home to hundreds of West Virginians while state, federal and local officials continued working to develop longer term housing plans for those who cannot return home.
Bruce Coleman, a 2016 graduate of the now flood-damaged Herbert Hoover High School in Kanawha County, is one of them.
“Our house is completely gone,” he said of his former home on washed out Jordan Creek Road in Elkview.
Coleman arrived at the American Red Cross shelter at Capital High School, where the count was 62 as of Tuesday morning, the day after the storms that lead to devastating flooding and has been staying there on his own since then while his other family members live with cousins in Roane County.
That may remain the housing situation for his entire family, he said, at least for the immediate future.
Barbara Elmore, an Elkview native who saw her trailer park in Frame washed out in the flood, would like to find a place to rent with her three children, ages 23, 22 and 17, for at least a few months.
Then, “We’ll decide what we’re going to do,” she said. “We have been talking about leaving the area completely, but we’re not sure if that’s really what we want.”
Elmore, who’d initially been staying with her boyfriend, sought shelter at Capital High School several days following the storm.
John Knicely, a Clendenin resident, landed there after being rescued from his porch at 4 a.m. with his wife and mother-in-law, age 90, and spending a couple of nights at a church near his Reamer Road home.
He and his wife moved to Clendenin from Clarksburg 12 years ago after his father-in-law died.
“I was told when I first came down here that, if we ever got flooded, there would be no Clendenin. Well, guess what? There’s no Clendenin,” Knicely said matter-of-factly while taking a break from eating a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich.
As of now, his goal is to be back in his repaired Clendenin home within the next six months.
His first challenge is finding adequate rental space that, he’s hoping, is at least partially furnished since much of his former furniture cannot be salvaged.
“I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got,” he told MetroNews on Monday.
In addition to extensive home repairs, Knicely said his family’s three vehicles were destroyed. On Tuesday, he was driving a rental vehicle.
“We’re on a limited income, but you still have obligations. Whether this happened or not, you still have bills to pay,” he said. “It’s not like, well, ‘I can take this money and go rent a place’ because this money’s already spent.”
Knicely reached his breaking point on Monday night. “I just broke down, totally, because it’s a strain, it’s a stress,” he said.
Before the flood, Coleman had been training as a junior firefighter with the Clendenin Volunteer Fire Department but does not know what his future will be like there as the VFD, crucial to emergency response in the storm’s immediate aftermath, works to recover itself from the flood.
He, Elmore and Knicely, along with others at the Capital High shelter praised the American Red Cross workers, many from outside of West Virginia, who’ve been staffing the shelter daily and those with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“They’re worn out just as much as we are,” Elmore said. Even with all that support though, she said she really wants to go home. “I’d like to just have a roof over my head, my own roof.”
Knicely agreed. “I told my wife last night I’d like to wake up in my own bed for a change.”