TRIADELPHIA, W.Va. — The 2025 Father’s Day weekend flood remains clear in the minds of those who survived as their hearts break for those who didn’t.
Separate storm cells camped over Ohio and Marion counties.
Saturday evening, June 14, 2025, a strong cell settled over the Triadelphia and Valley Grove communities near Wheeling. Three inches of rain fell in 62 minutes. Wheeling Creek quickly came out of its banks. Tragedy had struck. Nine people were dead.
“Unofficially, 69 million gallons of water came over those two communities in that one hour,” Ohio County Emergency Management Director Lou Vargo told MetroNews as he reflected back on the events of a year ago.
Triadelphia United Methodist Church Pastor Mike Palmer said previous flash floods impacting Wheeling Creek resulted in a gradual rise of the creek but that wasn’t the case with the 2025 flood.
“It was dry one minute and the next minute there was four foot of water coming down the road,” Palmer said. “It wasn’t a quick rise it was just sudden from nothing to four foot.”
The work of swift water rescue teams likely saved many other lives.
The next day, Father’s Day, June 15, three inches of rain fell in just 90 minutes hitting parts of Fairmont and surrounding communities.
The lasting image of the Fairmont flood is the partial collapse of the Village Apartments building on Locust Avenue. Several residents were rescued. There was no loss of life in Marion County.
A day to remember
Ohio County residents gathered Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary. A memorial to the flood victims was dedicated. It’s located in front of the Triadelphia United Methodist Church. Pastor Palmer told MetroNews it was a time to remember.
“For those who lost their lives and to say thank you to all the volunteers,” Palmer said. “Whether they volunteered time, resources, money, food, it all came together to help the flood victims.”
Palmer said the community might have been separated before the flood but it came together afterward. He said the unity since then has been amazing.
“It had no political backing or ‘me doing this’ or ‘me doing that’ it’s just everybody dropped everything they were and became decent human beings and began helping one another,” Palmer said.
The memorial dedicated Saturday in Triadelphia includes a 15-foot in diameter base. That base includes the names of all nine people who lost their lives. A tree growing out of the base with stainless steel ribbons represent the turning water trying to overcome the tree which is representing the community.
“The tree stands strong representing the community,” Palmer said.
The tree also has a few branches with a cardinal on one of them.
The branches read, “Life will continue but not without remembering those who lost their lives,” Palmer said.
More work to do
Vargo said there remains debris along the creek banks that needs to be removed. He met with the Soil Conservation Agency just last week to continue to move on flood mitigation. He said there are two stream clean-up projects underway in Valley Grove.
Vargo said Ohio County would not be as far along as it is a year after the tragedy had it not been for the long-term recovery team that was created two days after the flood hit with the combined efforts of the United Way and Family Resource Network.
“They work with other non-governmental agencies. This group has case workers who work with flood victims,” Vargo said.
More than $750,000 has been collected and distributed. Vargo said that’s in addition to $7.5 million in flood recovery funds from FEMA through the federal disaster declaration.
There are 23 remaining cases involving flood victim families that are in their final stages. Vargo said the requests continue. He said two new families requested help this past week.
“We’ve still got work to do but we aren’t going to stop until we get everything complete,” Vargo said.
Fairmont City Manager Travis Blosser said the city recently entered into a partnership with Fairmont State University and First Exchange Bank to demolish and redevelop three Locust Avenue properties.
“Those properties will be remediated, everything will be removed and then the university is also planning long-term investment that will be coupled with our mitigation efforts along Locust Avenue,” Blosser said. “I think this is a landmark property for us.”
Blosser said Fairmont is also working on a flood mitigation piece.
“There’s a lot of behind the scenes work happening related to mitigation efforts dealing with, ‘How do we prepare for the next major event?’ So we can try and mitigate and have it to be not as impactful as the Father’s Day flood was,” Blosser said.
He said mitigation isn’t easy work but it’s worth it.
“We got the folks ready to work through that and the team ready to do it,” Blosser said.
Blosser credits the Tygart Valley United Way and several other groups with helping Fairmont and its residents in the days and months after the flood.
Help continues today in Triadelphia
What’s called The Courage Project was born out of the Ohio County tragedy. Palmer said they are continuing to help flood victims including those who are still trying to restore their homes.
Palmer said in the rush of the flood they fed more than 11-hundred people three times a day for the first several months of recovery. Palmer said there’s only way his small church has been able to do what they’ve done.
“Only by the grace of God we are able to do all of this and as we continue to do it it’s by His glory we are able to,” Palmer said.