WASHINGTON, D.C. — West Virginia will seek both public and individual assistance in a federal disaster declaration following last weekend’s flood along the U.S. Route 250 corridor in north central West Virginia and parts of the Northern Panhandle.
State Emergency Management Director Jimmy Gianato, who was in Washington, D.C. Tuesday meeting with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said he’s confident at the very least several counties will get public assistance.
“It will help with our schools, our public infrastructure, water, sewer, highways, those type of things,” Gianato said Tuesday on MetroNews “Talkline.” “We’re going to seek both the public assistance declaration and the individual assistance.”
A total of seven counties will be targeted for public assistance with four of those counties also being targeted for individual assistance, Gianato said.
“We’re currently looking at Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel and Marion for individual assistance,” he said. “Those are the worst hit.”
Damage assessment teams will continue their work through the rest of the week with FEMA representatives joining those teams, Gianato said. He hopes the assessments for the four individual assistance counties will be done by the weekend.
As of right now, it appears there were 600-700 homes that sustained some level of damage, Gianato said.
“You didn’t have the rapid water in a lot of cases like you did in (June) 2016 (flood) that literally washed homes off their foundations,” Gianato said. “But what you have here is very similar to a river flood where the water comes up gets into homes and goes back down but it still does significant damage to those homes.”
Floors and walls will have to be replaced in some cases, Gianato said.
“The damage is still there although the structure itself is not totally destroyed,” he said.
Eight West Virginia counties remain under a state of emergency issued Saturday by Gov. Jim Justice including Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Harrison, Monongalia, Taylor and Tucker counties.