CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Thunderstorms dumped heavy rains that brought about important flooding in elements of West Virginia on Monday, authorities mentioned.
Gov. Jim Justice issued a state of emergency in at the very least 5 counties, enabling the National Guard to activate swift-water rescue groups and use helicopters in areas hit by floodwaters.
“This is an ongoing, life-threatening emergency,” the Kanawha County Commission mentioned on social media. “Please seek higher ground.”
The fee mentioned that based mostly on radar estimates, as much as 6 inches (15.2 centimeters) of rain fell in a brief period of time Monday in areas east of Charleston, sending a number of creeks out of their banks. Classes at a number of colleges have been canceled. Mudslides closed U.S. Route 60 within the Kanawha County neighborhood of Cedar Grove, and flooding led to lane closures on elements of Interstate 77.
First responders performed at the very least 22 water rescues within the county Monday morning, the fee mentioned.
The communities that have been hit the toughest have been alongside hillsides the place runoff flowed into slim valleys.
“The mountains we have make it really, really tough,” Justice mentioned throughout his weekly media briefing. “We’ve got more and more hardship on people, and it’s a crying shame. It’s very very, very difficult no matter what is done to be able to get away from that.”
The rains fell on prime of floor saturated by earlier extreme storms over the weekend. A bridge within the Chelyan space whose timber deck was lifted off its metal beams by particles and floodwaters was repaired on Sunday, solely to be underwater once more on Monday, the state Department of Transportation mentioned.
“It was just a downpour,” Pond Gap resident Terry Keenan mentioned. “I got up at 6 o’clock, and it was raining real hard.”
It marked the third time in a yr that extreme flooding hit southern West Virginia. In February, the physique of an toddler was present in a submerged automobile within the Fayette County city of Pax. In August 2022, flooding in Fayette and Kanawha counties broken greater than 100 properties, bridges and roads, disrupted ingesting water methods and washed out a part of a public service district’s sewage assortment system serving a jail.
In June 2016, 23 individuals died in flooding statewide.
“It just echoes the haunting feelings of June 23, 2016, when it ripped through everywhere and it was devastation beyond belief,” the governor mentioned.
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