By Shauna Johnson
CHARLESTON — Three years ago today, what some described as a “tsunami wave” of water tore through communities in central and southeastern West Virginia, killing 23 people and leaving entire cities and towns devastated.
The long road to recovery continues for some West Virginians.
“Even though that area’s really bounced back really nicely, you can still drive around certain places and you can see where something hit,” said State Police Col. Jan Cahill. “It’s hard to imagine it’s already been three years.”
On June 23, 2016, Cahill was the sheriff in Greenbrier County and watched as heavy rain kept falling.
“The water just didn’t stop,” he recalled in a recent interview with MetroNews. “It was just like being in an automated car wash. I knew right then, I was like, ‘This is something we haven’t seen before.’ ”
In White Sulphur Springs, Bruce Bowling, now the city’s mayor, could only watch the rising Howard’s Creek.
“I saw a house hit a bridge. I’ll never forget that and there were people inside the house at the time. They all three perished,” Mayor Bowling said ahead of the flood anniversary.
Sixteen of the 23 people who died in the floodwaters were in Greenbrier County.
One of the victims was carried 33 miles in the raging waters.
It was August, seven weeks after the storms, before the final victim was found, Mykala Phillips, age 14. She was the youngest of all of the flood victims in West Virginia.
“There were some times there I didn’t think there were a couple folks that were ever going to be recovered, I’ll just say that,” Cahill said.
Heavy rain on June 21, 2016, served as precursor for the heavier rain two days later, on June 23.
The rain started in the morning. By the afternoon, storms were training through a region stretching roughly from Clendenin in northern Kanawha County to White Sulphur Springs in eastern Greenbrier County.
Between 6 a.m. on June 23, 2016, and 6 a.m. on June 24, 2016, 8.29 inches of rain fell on White Sulphur Springs, records showed. That was more than double the previous one-day rain record there. Most of that rain was within a 12-hour period.
The other areas hit hard included Rupert, Rainelle, Richwood, Clendenin and Clay.
Twelve counties were part of a state of emergency declaration.
In all, more than 1,500 homes and businesses were destroyed.
Some of those people are still not in permanent housing and construction has yet to begin on replacement schools for those flooded in both Nicholas County and Kanawha County.
“Unless you were there, you’re thinking people were exaggerating (about the damage),” Cahill said.
“You don’t ever want to forget about it but, at the same time, we’re reminded of it every time it rains hard it seems like,” Bowling said.
Along parts of Central Avenue, storm damage was still evident on properties awaiting stalled federal hazard mitigation funding for rebuilds.
“On the one end of the street, you wouldn’t know it happened. The other end of the street, it still looks the same,” he told MetroNews.
Overall, in the three years since the flood, he said White Sulphur Springs “has come a long way” and Bowling’s optimistic about the future. Downtown, development’s underway with help from an Opportunity Zone designation.
“I’ve lived here all my life and this is probably as good a surge of business activity as we’ve had since I’m been alive,” he said. “We’ve got people who want the town to come back and it’s happening. It’s going to be better than it was.”
