BUCKHANNON, W.Va. — The flood recovery and response in Lewis and Upshur counties will change significantly over the next few days.
Buckhannon spokesman Randy Sanders said the final day of operations for the relief distribution center at West Virginia Wesleyan College will be Sunday. The center will operate until 5 p.m. Saturday. Sunday, the center will operate from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; then Monday the supplies will be transferred to the Market Place Mall disaster relief site.
“They will gladly welcome Upshur County residents who need to then transition there to get cleaning supplies and tools they need to put their lives back together,” Sanders said.
Hundreds of volunteers are repairing homes in Lewis County while the state Division of Highways and members of the West Virginia National Guard work to clear mountains of debris. State Senator Ben Queen, R-Harrison, said after 10 days of emergency mode some parts of the recovery will evolve there as well.
“Thousands of man hours that are being accounted for,” Queen said Friday on MetroNews “Talkline.” “But we are on day 10, and those businesses that have given 10 days’ worth of free labor and supplies will eventually have to go back to work.”
The long-range plan for relief supplies is to find church groups, volunteer fire departments, and civic organizations that could safely store and distribute relief supplies in areas in the county. Officials are also asking residents to pass things like shop vacs, fans, or humidifiers to the next family who may be in need when they are no longer needed.
“It’s always evolving; it’s changing on a daily basis, but if we find a need to staff these community centers out in the different parts of the county, we’ll do everything we can to make that happen,” Sanders said.
Queen said damage to schools in Lewis County will be in the several million dollar range with classes set to start in just three weeks. The Lewis County Board of Education is developing plans and alternate plans for the start of classes this year.
“Back to school is in three weeks, and we have one really badly affected school, the middle school in downtown, so it will be important to get that cleaned up as much as possible.”
The City of Buckhannon has waived all building permit fees, but the work still must comply with building codes. Sanders said there are at least 1,000 structures in the city that need some sort of repair, and they want those repairs to be done correctly and serve families for as long as possible.
“Once the rebuild is done, we want it to be good for the next several decades,” Sanders said. “We don’t want to wake up in five or ten years and have poorly constructed areas creating havoc for families.”