Severe thunderstorm blows roof off of West Side car wash

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A severe thunderstorm packing heavy rains and winds wreaked havoc in the capital Tuesday night, blowing the roof off a car wash on Charleston’s West Side.

The roof of Mountaineer Car Wash on Virginia Street blew off with such force that the roof damaged cars in an adjacent lot, and pieces of the roof lay in the parking lot of the nearby Hampton Inn. The manager of the lot, Tim Van Lehn, said there was nothing he could do.

“Wow. Things happen, you can’t beat mother nature,” he said in awe of the damage. “I just got to wait until it dries out and I can survey what damage has been done. Let the insurance companies deal with it from there.

Van Lehn didn’t witness the roof blow off, but he was called by emergency personnel after he was finished for the day and knew it was serious.

“I just left 10 minutes before it happened. I just got home and they called me from 911 and they told me I had to come back down here because the roof of the cash wash flew off and damaged some of my cars,” he recalled.

Yeager Airport’s Emergency Operations Center was opened as a precaution. The airport didn’t have to look far to see the effects of the flood damage; a decent sized tree was blocking the right side of the road on Airport Road leading up to Yeager.

Officials were called out to remove the tree. Winds from the storm reached up to 60 miles an hour during the storm, which hit Ohio hard Tuesday afternoon before making its way into West Virginia early in the evening.

High water had also been reported in Huntington, closing several roads.