Flood relief in a West Virginia town

In this summer of catastrophic floods – first in West Virginia in late June and now in Louisiana – scores of small communities will face the daunting task of digging out and trying to start over. For one inundated West Virginia town, help came from down the road, across the country, and next door. And a good bit of that help came from folks who once called Richwood, West Virginia, home. Townspeople rallied, and a state official stepped in briefly to lead until the mayor-elect, Bob Henry Baber, could take over. The situation was dire for a town already long impoverished by the demise of the coal industry. The sewer system was largely destroyed. Water intakes were compromised. Roads were torn up. Ninety residents of a nursing and rehabilitation center had been evacuated by staff and neighbors amid waist-deep rising waters; the building was later abandoned and 130 jobs lost. Only 5 percent of homeowners had flood insurance. Already a food desert, the town’s last place to buy groceries, Dollar General, had been ravaged. Experts were calling it a 1,000-year flood. Within hours of the flooding, a dozen utility workers from the town of Hurricane, West Virginia, more than two hours away, came with everything from a dump truck and jetter to a 1,000-gallon water buffalo. They got water and sewer to most of the town up and running that same evening, and to more people later. Then they cleaned out churches, community centers, and houses, staying six days in all, the guests of a church miles away. Hurricane later sent four more crew members and three police officers. Its mayor, Scott Edwards, himself came down a week later and helped clean out debris under houses.