CLENDENIN, W.Va. — With 90 percent of its businesses out of service, Clendenin is one of the West Virginia communities struggling to get back on its feet in the wake of the June flood. Progress is slow, but there is progress according to mayor Gary Bledsoe.
“Everything I’m seeing, people are actually cleaning and preparing to restore their houses,” Bledsoe said. “I truly believe that most of the people will stay.”
Town residents and Bledsoe’s operations are getting help from the FEMA disaster assistance funds. The town’s merchants however are another matter. Most are learning FEMA has no ability to aid in restoring a business and the agency which is responding to their needs, the U.S. Small Business Administration, has only low interest loans available. That doesn’t help a lot according to Bledsoe who said some of the business owners already have loans they are paying off from before the flood. He hopes the legislature will be able to find some assistance.
“Grants to businesses, just a small amount of money would be a big help maybe to start the rebuilding process or maybe to just help them to start to restock,” said Bledsoe.
Cleanup in Clendenin is being helped along with the aid of an army of volunteers according to Bledsoe.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in cleaning up the streets,” he said. “We’ve had some fantastic volunteers.”
But Bledsoe admitted there was still a long way to go before the town is back to a sense of normalcy.