CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County emergency officials are dealing with two disasters simultaneously. The county had sporadic tornadoes and damaging high winds on April 2nd. A week later, torrential rains caused damaging flash floods.
Now victims of both events are trying to plot their next move. Kanawha County Emergency Services Coordinator C.W. Sigman said for immediate help you can go to VOAD or the Red Cross who are a phone call away.
“2-1-1 is probably the best number to call and they’ll connect you to the Red Cross or VOAD,” he said.
The next step is to fill out a survey the county is running on both events. The survey can be found on the county’s Emergency Services webpage or links on their social media sites.
“If we can get that data, maybe we can get a disaster declaration from FEMA. For the wind event we have a lot of people who have filled it out, for the flood event we do not,” he added.
A meeting is slated for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Washington District Community Center sponsored by the Alum Creek Alliance for Community Development. Officials say it’s an opportunity for flood and wind victims to make official storm damage reports, collect information and learn about the next steps in relief and recovery.
Sigman noted FEMA does not want anyone to wait on them before they start the cleanup process. He said just make sure you keep good receipts and take plenty of pictures to show the damage and what you have done to fix it.
“Documentation, documentation, documentation, take pictures of everything you’re doing. They don’t want you to sit around and wait on them,” he said.
So far Sigman said 15 homes in Kanawha County were destroyed in the wind event. Almost all of them were destroyed by trees blowing onto the house. He anticipated there would be more. So far there haven’t been any reports of homes destroyed by the flood, but the damage assessment and evaluation is ongoing. Most of the flood damage involved basement flooding or culverts and bridges impacted by the swift water.
Sigman said there is one very key difference in the recovery of the two events.
“A lot of people have insurance that will cover damage from the wind event, but very few have insurance for the flood event,” he said.