ELKVIEW, W.Va. — Her home survived the June flood, but her job did not.
Brenda Midkiff was one of dozens of former employees of the Bob Evans Restaurant, located at Elkview Crossings Mall off Interstate 79 in northern Kanawha County, who attended a Tuesday meeting in Elkview with a Workforce West Virginia Rapid Response Team.
At the end of July, Midkiff and her roughly 40 co-workers received letters notifying them of their terminations effective Aug. 1 due to a still uncertain reopening date for the restaurant which remained inaccessible nearly seven weeks after flash flooding along Little Sandy Creek.
The creek ran so high and so fast in the June 23 storms that it knocked out the former access bridge, trapping those still shopping or working at the Elkview Crossings Mall.
An emergency road was built within days to allow people to leave the site, but that road is not an option for everyday access.
Midkiff, who lives in the Clendenin area, had made it home before the worst of the storms started that day.
A Bob Evans employee of 15 years who’d most recently worked in food prep, she said she was “shocked” when she received the termination letter.
Since then, she’s been on the job hunt, but has been having trouble finding a new place of employment.
“Especially when Clendenin’s all washed out, there’s nothing up there now,” she said. “I don’t know when it’s going to be back up.”
In cases like the Bob Evans firings, those with a Workforce West Virginia Rapid Response Team step in to help dislocated workers transition to new employment as quickly as possible.
Ahead of the meeting, Midkiff said she needed the help.
“It’s kind of hard because you have to go to Charleston to get a job and you can’t afford to drive down there,” she said. “My roads are washed out and they’re trying to get them fixed and it’s kind of rough.”
The responsibility for the bridge falls to Plaza Management, the owner of the Crossings Mall.
Work on a replacement for the access bridge was scheduled to begin this week and could continue for the next one to two months, according to county officials.
Bob Evans is one of many businesses located at Elkview Crossings Mall that has been forced to remain closed for weeks. Until a new bridge is in place, the future of the restaurant and its neighbors remains unclear.
“It was all family,” Midkiff said of the Elkview Bob Evans crew. “It’s heartbreaking when you don’t have your family to work with and then when they say that (you’re fired), it’s like, man. It’s weird really.”