Today, June 23rd, is an anniversary of cruel irony here in West Virginia.
A date marked by two of the most significant and devastating weather events in our state’s existence, 72 years apart.
Ten years ago, on this date, June 23rd, 2016, a catastrophic flash flood struck central and southern West Virginia. A relentless storm system that dropped 8 to 10 inches of rain in a 12-hour window, the flooding killed 23 people, completely devastated towns like Clendenin and Richwood and heavily damaged The Greenbrier resort. Meteorologists classified the storm as a 1-in-1,000-year event. The Elk River crested at an all-time record high of over 33 feet, still hard to imagine it a decade later.
As bad as the”1,000-Year” Flood that continues to impact many of our residents was ten years ago on this date, it pales in comparison to the Shinnston Tornado, on June 23rd, 1944.
The Shinnston Tornado remains the deadliest tornado in West Virginia’s history. On that fateful Friday night around 8:30 in 1944, the massive F-4 tornado struck Shinnston the hardest, before tearing through Marion, Taylor, Barbour, and Randolph counties.
All told, 103 people lost their lives that night and hundreds more were injured. The disaster was a massive shock to the region, as many believed that violent tornadoes were considered to be rare, due to our state’s mountainous terrain.
That’s a bit of a misconception, by the way. West Virginia averaged only about two tornadoes per year between 1993 and 2022, but two years ago, experienced a historic, record-breaking total of 20 confirmed tornadoes, shattering the state’s previous calendar-year record of 14 tornadoes in 1998.
And we are in the peak month for tornadoes right now. Nearly 30% of all recorded twisters in West Virginia occur in the month of June and the tornadoes season runs through the end of July.
The Shinnston Tornado roared into the Pleasant Hill suburb, where an estimated fifty houses were torn apart and at least one or perhaps more homes were blown into the West Fork River. When the region lost power, the doctors and nurses at both St. Mary’s Hospital and Union Protestant Hospital in Clarksburg dealt with an avalanche of patients pouring in by candlelight.
It’s still considered by many as biggest disaster in Central West Virginia history. A song about the The Shinnston Tornado written and recorded by the Smith Brothers described it this way:
Where do you run to when the noon is black as night?
And you hear a rumblin’ freight train but there isn’t one in sight,
And you feel your body risin’ though you say it can’t be so?
Well, I’m tellin’ you, it happened in the Shinnston Tornado.