CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Officials in Kanawha County are looking to prevent future flooding from county creeks and streams after Thursday’s flooding.
Kanawha County Emergency Management Director C.W. Sigman reported 25 water rescues during Thursday’s county commission meeting — many of those being drivers stuck in high water.
During Sigman’s report Thursday, the main dialogue centered around county culverts being washed out during flooding situations.
Commissioner Lance Wheeler says the lack of proper cleaning of county culverts throughout the year leads to additional problems when a bad storm comes with little warning.
“No one maintains them,” Wheeler said. “It’s leaves, trash, debris, sticks that clog these up and then a massive rainstorm comes, that water has nowhere to go, and that’s usually when you see these culverts lift up. The water gets stuck in the culvert and it just lifts it up, and that’s where you’re seeing a lot of this damage.”
Sigman mentioned a specific culvert on Goff Mountain that could have done more damage Thursday had his crews not looked at it the day before the storm hit. Once notified about the culvert, state crews had it cleaned out within an hour. Sigman says there needs to be a larger cleaning effort in the county on a regular basis.
“We need to do something because that worked very well. We didn’t have flooding because it was taken care of,” Sigman said.
Unfortunately for Sigman’s crews and the commission, many culverts reside on private property. Sigman says this is a problem without a clear solution.
“A lot of these sit on private property and I don’t have a good answer for that,” Sigman said.
Commission President Ben Salango says he’s more than ready to get something off the ground to clean the available culverts.
“Maybe you could give us an idea, come up with some kind of plan that you could present to us about additional enforcement, additional education, even if it’s with a grant, so that when it’s nice and sunny outside, we can go and try to do everything we can to prevent the next event,” Salango said.
While the commission may join forces with emergency management crews to clean out some culverts, a tighter 2025 budget will need to be considered.
Wheeler says the commission needs to try to be conscientious.
“We’ve got to be real with ourselves that this idea of education and enforcement possibly is going to cost more money,” Wheeler said. “We’ve got to figure something that is cost-efficient but still getting the job done.”