KINGWOOD — A mobile home the Town of Albright went to court to force the removal of is no longer in town.
The home was moved during the weekend, according to residents.
The town filed suit in July as a means of enforcing its flood control ordinance. Preston County Floodplain Coordinator Clark Nicklow said enforcement is important for several reasons.
Enforcing the ordinances can reduce losses neighbors suffer in floods, Nicklow said Thursday. An unsecured trailer could be rammed into neighboring properties in a flood event, he said.
Also, when towns and counties participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, it gives residents access to emergency disaster assistance and grants.
“And, if they don’t enforce their floodplain ordinances, that jeopardizes all of those things. Residents couldn’t get a federally insured loan,” for example, Nicklow said.
“Anymore, the federal government requires that if you have a mortgage on a house that you have to have flood insurance to protect that mortgage,” Nicklow said.
Without flood insurance, “there’s very few avenues to get you back into that house,” after a flood, he said. “Flood insurance is the main thing. So that’s why the communities need to enforce that ordinance, so their residents can get flood insurance.”
Albright filed suit after trying to work with Susan Sapp, the owner of the property where the trailer sat, according to court testimony. Her daughter, Amy Sapp, was the mobile home’s owner, according to testimony at a Nov. 14 hearing in Preston Circuit Court.
Preston Circuit Judge Steve Shaffer gave Amy Sapp 10 days to remove the trailer. If she did not, the town had authority to do so.
Susan Sapp’s fiancé, Kent Rollins, filed several letters with the court after the deadline. He initially did so on the letterhead of Region VI Planning and Development Council, where he is employed.
After being contacted by The Dominion Post, Region VI’s director said it had no part in the case and ordered Rollins not to use his work stationery in the matter.
In a filing last week, Rollins repeated allegations that it was proving difficult to find someone to move the 30-year-old mobile home because of newspaper stories. He said then it had been sold and would be moved.
Rollins has said that he should have been contacted about the matter because he is a trained floodplain coordinator. In court, he also said the mobile home would not move in a flood because it was still on its wheels, and three of those had been vandalized.
Albright is located along the Cheat River.
In his decision, Shaffer said that the matter will remain active on the docket, “so that the Town of Albright may file a petition for attorneys fees and costs after the removal of the manufactured home.”
No petition had been filed as of Thursday morning.
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