CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Slow progress on recovery from the 2016 flood in West Virginia goes on.
During a weekly update on the RISE WV Program, State Adjutant General James Hoyer released the most recent numbers on home repair and reconstruction in communities devastated in the 2016 event.
According to this week’s update, RISE has 41 homes in construction phase. Seventeen of those homes are replacements for homes lost in the high water. Officials say another dozen are reconstruction projects and a dozen more are in demolition.
The West Virginian Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster, (VOAD) this week issued eight notices to proceed for three rehab and five construction projects on various homes which have applied for assistance. VOAD and RISE WV are working closely to coordinate the projects. Construction is expected to begin in the coming weeks on those eight homes and 31 more reconstruction and 14 mobile home replacement projects are working their way through the procurement process.
A total of 291 cases have been assigned for construction or are awaiting the final go ahead to begin work. VOAD is expected to pick up 20 more cases for processing in the next few days after which will leave 67 cases awaiting assignment.
Meanwhile, officials at Rise WV report completion of another bridge this week, which elevated the total number of bridge projects completed to six. Another 68 spans remain in the case management process. About a dozen are in various stages of construction.
The number of outstanding Housing Program cases is 423. The current breakdown by
construction type is as follows: 51 homes are complete, 258 cases require total reconstruction, 51 cases require some form of rehabilitation actions, 101 cases require new mobile home replacement, and 13 cases are awaiting initial project type and undergoing the damage assessment process.
The number is down from the most recent update in June, when 496 cases were pending, but there had been some fluctuation in the number of the outstanding cases.