Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire West Virginia Storm Damage

The Coalton, Norton area lost their water supply today. As of midday there were approximately 34,000 households in this region of the state still without power according to an Elkins Intermountain post.

More prayers on the way. You folks hang in there.

First the destruction of the coal industry in West Virgina and now this. Why does Obama hate white people?

I had a large branch break out of a maple tree and a large branch out of a hickory that was a gift from unknown source.
Here's a pic of the tree that just grazed my trailer. Very minor damage to the trailer.

Any word about the Mercer or Tazwell county areas of VA and WVA?

Ernie

The type of storm that hit us is called a Derecho. They're like a dry land hurricane that doesn't spin. This one started in the Chicago area and took off. Strigh line winds were 50 - 90 mph. I honestly believe thousands of tons of food is going to be trashed.

The white caps on the river were being blown up stream.

Dave,

You're right about food loss. We are aware of large amounts of food being dumped at stores and know that a lot of families have lost their refrigerated and frozen foods. Just got pics from Parkersburg. There is a lot of damage from trees and poles going down.

Dave

Not to mention crop damage.

My daughter called me from just north of Lewisburg, WV and told me about it. They were running on a generator, but other than for trees showing up where none existed they managed not to have much property damage.

Just hope everyone back there is alright.. My mom has been on the phone with a lot of relatives back there, but none of them are hurt or anything badly damaged on their property...

have family in Monroe, Mercer, Raleigh and Greenbriar Counties in WVa and Tazewell and Giles County in VA.. then in Loudon, Prince William, Carroll, Fairfax and Arlington Counties in No VA...

knock on wood... lived thru stuff like that when living in MN and time spent out in the Dakotas....not fun stuff...

I heard 2/3 of the state was without power yesterday..
but then 1/2 never had power to begin with!

LOL sorry..
but more than a couple of out houses were flipped over!?!

Sitting here north of Elkins we were very fortunate. Some scattered wind damage, a few structures, and some oppressive heat, but doing OK. Spent the weekend helping folks get their generators on line, and sharing to help others get along.
A lot of folks are in dire straights.
I have spoken with a lot of guys from First Energy that are pounding the ground to get power back to folks. Here they are not seeing the damage expected to cause this kind of widespread failure. Overall this is a failure of the grid, and the way it is restored. Parkersburg was one of the first major 138 kv transmissions to fail, and other followed suit, causing some of the massive blackout. There are 6 138kv lines that supply the Elkins major Sub station, and none of the lines carried a volt, even after the minor damage was repaired to the lines. All of the high line guys said this was a re-establishment of power issue due to antiquated hardware.
Granted there is a lot of damage to several counties, Webster which is still 100% with out power, Lewis, about 99%, and Upsher which is just now coming back on line.
They said it may be as many as 10-11 days more before power is restored, including the community of Coalton.
As far as most of the folks in WV go, they are as good as it gets. Giving a helping hand, and going without. There have been a few reported cases of fuel THEFT from POWER COMPANY VEHICLES, (cant tell you how much this pisses me off) and other general crap. Nothing that can not be expected from lack of infrastructure, from those that are entitled.
For me this is a really good work out of my preparedness. I personally have to address a few items that take priority, and then be diligent to take care of a few other items on the way.
For those of you that your Bug out plan is to come to the mountains, your theory is flawed. People everywhere without infrastructure react the same with out the basics. I believe if we would have had to endure 3-7 days of heat, without power, water, and basics, things here would have been chippy in no time probably in about 48 hours.
My thoughts and prayers go to those fighting the good fight to get some stability back in their lives.

"Here they are not seeing the damage expected to cause this kind of widespread failure."

I've been thinking this very thing about visible damage in relation to the scope of the outage. And I think your other observations are about spot-on.

I continue to be concerned about the almost total lack of current, accurate and much needed information coming from the state, county and local level when we were all trying to sort this out and take appropriate action.

Seems as though there was a total infrastructure failure for 48-72 hours here in the New River valley area of va.