CHARLESTON, W.Va. — “Turn around, don’t drown,” that’s the message officials are pushing Thursday after a rare February thunderstorm hit overnight that brought on severe flash flooding in Kanawha and surrounding counties.

The National Weather Service had to extend the flash flood warning for Northern Kanawha County, Northeastern Lincoln County, and Central Putnam County until 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning as up to 3 inches of rain was reported.

Kanawha County Commissioner Lance Wheeler said on 580 Live Thursday morning that they had been watching the situation since Wednesday evening after Governor Patrick Morrisey and his office issued a State of Preparedness.

Wheeler said they tried to be prepared the best they could, especially when people started reaching out to them in the early hours of the morning, that’s when they knew it was boots on the ground, he said.

Lance Wheeler

“When we started getting calls around 4 a.m. of people saying that water was encroaching on their property and the front porch of their house, that people were trapped in their cars because they were trying to drive through flooded areas, we knew immediately that this was going to be a big of a deal as it is now,” said Wheeler.

He said they immediately partnered with Kanawha County Metro 911 to activate their Emergency On Command Center and sent out Wireless Emergency Alerts to people’s phones.

Wheeler said, and because it was so early, they activated sirens across the most affected areas of St. Albans, Tornado, Nitro and Sissonville to let residents know that there was a possibility of water coming onto their property.

He said even though the rain stops, that doesn’t mean flooding does.

“We’re going to see water coming off the mountains, slowly filling up the creeks and rivers, so we might see other areas that might have a little bit of increase in flooding, but the water is receding at this point from what we can tell,” Wheeler said.

Dana Ferrell

Kanawha County Delegate Dana Ferrell said the Sissonville area was heavily impacted by the downpour.

However, he said the Volunteer Fire Department there is extremely efficient and responsive, and they have the equipment and are trained to conduct swift water rescues.

Ferrell said in fact, crews have been out most of the night and continue to be out trying to respond to calls of people who were trapped.

He said he expects to get more calls coming in even after the rain subsides.

“I’ll start getting calls from people like in that last big rain we had in the spring of last year, I think it was in March, the end of March we had something like this, people’s driveways, culverts were completely washed out, they couldn’t get to their home,” he said.

Ferrell said you don’t have to live near a stream to have water damage when something like this happens.

“Flooded basements, culverts, you can be in sub-division and have water problems when you have that amount of water in such a short period of time, the ground is already saturated,” said Ferrell.

Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin said the city’s team was up at 4 a.m. as well Thursday morning responding to the situation.

She said they work with the county and emergency crews to assist in anything that’s needed such as water rescues and clean-ups.

Goodwin said while they had no water rescues inside city limits, they did assist in several outside of city limits.

She said if it’s not snow and ice, the city crews are doing their best to mitigate the effects of this flooding.

“Our public grounds, yes they’re the folks that come and scrape and salt your roads, but this morning they’re out for flooding, we already have four vachos out, our gradall is already on Garrison,”

Amy Shuler Goodwin

she said.

Goodwin said most of the high water is receding now, but then the focus becomes on debris removal from the roads.

She said people should never underestimate how much water can be lurking in those dips and valleys.

“Six inches of water can plow you over, knock you off your feet and take you away, that’s not that much water, and twelve inches can take away your car, period,” said Goodwin.

Wheeler said they are encouraging everyone to be very cautious as water continues to recede.

“This water is not going to go anywhere quickly, it’s still going to be on the roads, so just be careful, and we’ll continue to monitor to see if there’s any flooding damage,” Wheeler said. “At this point we have received phone calls of people saying that there’s water in their basement, but we haven’t seen anyone with a drastic property loss from this flash flooding.”