MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Rain gauges in Martinsburg show parts of the city picked up 5.5 inches of rain in less than an hour in a Thursday evening storm.
The deluge caused lots of flooding. Dozens of vehicles were damaged and many basements flooded.
Martinsburg City Manager Andy Blake said that amount of rain equals a thousand-year storm.
“I’ve been here since 1996 and there are areas that were under water that I’ve never seen,” Blake said Friday on Panhandle Live on WEPM Radio.
Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles said five inches of rain in an hour is not something you can plan for.
“It’s a God thing,” Knowles said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
An initial flash flood warning was issued at 5:15 p.m. and a second one at 5:30 p.m.
The basement at Knowles’ home filled with more than four feet of water.
“The whole neighborhood was underwater, not only my basement, but several basements throughout the neighborhood there. And I had about 4 1/2 feet that covered my whole house down in the backyard and out to the front,” Knowles said. “So we’ve had issues before, nothing like this as long as I’ve been there and have never seen it go this bad.”
Blake said it was a really difficult night for residents who lost a lot.
“Garbage trucks will be out. Just put it out (flood debris) on the curb and we’ll take it. It may not be today but we’ll take it,” Blake said.
Knowles said despite criticisms from “keyboard warriors” the city was putting in the work Friday.
“The fact is that this city and all the workers, including myself and Andy, were out there all day, all night working to help to alleviate the issues that we saw out there of something that doesn’t come around,” Knowles said. “It comes around once every thousand years. I don’t care how much storm water people want to talk about, that much rain, nothing can handle that. Nothing can handle that.”
Blake said some of the numbers when it comes to water processed at the city’s wastewater plant are amazing.
“The wastewater plant gets about 3-million a gallons a day and the last I checked last night when I left at 10 o’clock 12 million gallons had flowed through,” Blake said. “I give the water department crew big props, the raw tank went down for a while and the storage tanks went down but because of their quick action and back up plans the water flow was continuous.”
Knowles said the governor’s office reached out. Blake seemed doubtful the area would be declared a federal disaster area because of the limited geographical size of the storm, but city leaders are open to any help a disaster declaration could send the city’s way.
Quickly, scanner and neighborhood social media pages filled up Thursday evening with reports and pictures of people trying to walk through water almost up to their knees.
Following the storm, WEPM reporter Luke Wiggs talked to a man inside Onelife Fitness named Adam was inside when the weather hit, then lent a helping hand outside.
“I just came out of the gym — I came out pretty late — so I just saw a bunch of cars sitting,” he described. “I saw them pushing one, so I jumped in to help push that one, and I wanted to see what they were going to do with this one.”
One scanner page reported a vehicle with water in it and with people still in the vehicle.
Into the 6 o’clock hour, reports were coming in of flooding, particularly a flood-prone spot in the area of West Virginia Avenue and Buxton Street.
The storm canceled the planned season-opening football game between Martinsburg and Hedgesville High Schools Thursday night.
Berkeley County Schools announced Martinsburg High School had experienced “significant water intrusion” and would be closed Friday.
Early Friday morning, the school system announced the closure of both Winchester Avenue and Burke Street Elementary Schools for the day.