KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. — The damage from the thunderstorms throughout Jackson, Kanawha, Putnam and surrounding counties wasn’t as bad as some thought it would be Thursday.
That is what Kanawha County Emergency Management Director CW Sigman had to say after a strong batch of rain and wind rolled in from the west through a large portion of West Virginia.
“Overall, it was not as bad as I thought it might be,” Sigman said. “A lot of it was just drainage issues.”
Sigman said he browsed some areas in Kanawha County Thursday afternoon. He reported no flooding except for some drainage problems on Sun Valley Drive in Cross Lanes. Some streets in Charleston including the corner of Brooks and Lee Street experienced some of the more serious flooding situations.
“Our major underpasses did not flood,” said Sigman. “We had a lot of water pretty fast and some of the places the drains couldn’t take care of that, but again it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
Thankfully, no injuries were reported after a tree fell onto a truck in the Sissonville area, trapping people inside. Dispatchers said the incident happened just before 5 p.m. on Bethel Lane.
No other injuries were reported elsewhere, according to Sigman, but multiple trees were reported down, most of them in Kanawha County.
Plenty of power outages were reported Thursday evening too with Cabell, Kanawha, Jackson and Putnam counties enduring the most. Sigman reminded residents to not touch or go near power lines under any circumstances.
“Don’t touch them, you might think they’re dead, but just leave them alone until the power company gets there,” he said.
Appalachian Power’s outage map showed West Virginia had more than 1,100 customers in Kanawha, 900 customers in Putnam and 600 customers in Jackson County without power Thursday afternoon soon after the storms hit between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Those numbers dropped to just over 800 customers in Kanawha, 600 customers in Putnam and around 50 customers in Jackson county by 9 p.m.
“Leave it (power lines) alone until the power company gets there,” Sigman added.
A severe thunderstorm watch was in effect in Kanawha County until 9 p.m. Thursday night.