Flash flooding triggered by heavy rains resulted in the deaths of five individuals in northern West Virginia. Rescue teams are actively searching for three additional people who remain missing as of Sunday. Authorities are currently evaluating the extent of damage inflicted on roads, bridges, natural gas pipelines, and other essential infrastructure.
Officials said 2.5 to 4 inches (6 to 10 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of Wheeling and Ohio County within about a half hour on Saturday night.
“We started receiving emergency calls almost immediately,” stated Lou Vargo, the emergency management director for Ohio County, during a news conference on Sunday. “Due to significant damage to roads, bridges, and highways, our response to many emergencies was delayed. The sheer extent of the damage hindered our efforts to reach affected areas promptly.”
Vargo continued, “The situation escalated incredibly fast. In my 35 years of experience, I have witnessed significant floods in both the city and county, but nothing compares to this event.”
Authorities said vehicles were swept into swollen creeks, some people sought safety in trees and a mobile home caught fire.
Similarly, swift flash flooding arrived in Marion County, south of Wheeling and Ohio County, early Sunday afternoon, causing extensive damage to bridges, roads and some homes, the county’s Department of Homeland Security & Emergency Management said in a Facebook post. The county’s 911 line has already processed at least 165 calls for service since the storms began.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey declared a state of emergency in Marion County Sunday evening.
Jim Blazier, the fire chief in Wheeling in the state’s northern panhandle, said crews performed rescue operations into Sunday’s early morning hours. He said first responders regrouped Sunday morning and were focused on an area from the Ohio state line across the Ohio River to Wheeling Creek.
“We’re searching the banks, we’re searching submerged vehicles, any debris we find along the trail and so forth,” Blazier said. “We’re using drones, search dogs and swift water personnel, and we have teams organized that are searching sectors that we’re trying to recover anybody that’s missing.”
There were about 2,500 reported power outages in the county Sunday, Morrisey confirmed in a news release Sunday evening, which updated the number of people confirmed dead to five, with three more missing. He has declared a state of emergency in Ohio County and mobilized the National Guard to support emergency operations.
“In many respects, this is kind of a unicorn event, because a lot of the rain had very narrow areas and there were roughly 3 to 4 inches of water that fell in the area in less than an hour,” Morrisey said at a press conference earlier Sunday. “That’s very, very difficult to deal with.”
He added, “Your friends, your neighbors, your first responders and people in the community, they’re out working very hard to find people. That’s our No. 1 task right now, trying to identify anyone who may still be out there.”
The West Virginia rains followed heavy downpours in San Antonio on Thursday that killed 13 people. More than 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain fell over a span of hours in the Texas city, causing fast-rising floodwaters to carry more than a dozen cars into a creek.
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