The West Virginia Flood of 1985

30 years ago this year, I was 15 years old, and was beginning my freshman year of high school.  It was a year of great transition for me personally, as we had moved from our house of 5 years in Kirby, WV, and at that time Mom and I were actually living briefly with my grandmother and step-grandfather in the town of Baker, WV.  At the end of October 1985, my grandparents were compelled to make another move to the town of Rowlesburg, WV, and just prior to moving there at the mid-November 1985 timeframe, something major happened.  In the early morning hours of November 5, 1985, a number of people across a wide part of the state of West Virginia were abruptly interrupted in their sleep by a raging cascade of water surging up many of the state's rivers due to effects of a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico called Juan, and those moments would alter the lives of thousands of West Virginians from that point forward.

My great-grandmother's house in Hendricks, WV, on the right - the house in the foreground was Homer and Kay Carr's place. This was the aftermath of the Flood of 1985.

I was not directly affected by the Flood, as at the time we lived far away from the rivers and all we got was some yard and basement flooding from a pond across the road from the house.  But, it did impact me in other ways.  The picture above, for instance, shows the house I practically grew up in - it was my great-grandmother's home for many years, and in its attic were a lot of personal mementos that were destroyed in the Great Flood.  At the time of the Flood, my cousin Buzz and his wife Helen lived in that house, and they were displaced.  However, when we moved with my grandparents from Baker to Rowlesburg in November, some two weeks after the Flood took place, we saw the devastation first-hand.  Rowlesburg, quite honestly, looked like a war zone - the level of destruction from the overflowing Cheat River was so massive that it was almost infathomable to comprehend unless you were actually looking at it, and then the reality of what happened was so shocking that it caused many people to just emotionally shut down.  However, it also instilled in many residents of many communities - including Parsons and Rowlesburg - a remarkable resolve, and the people in those communities really pulled together to help each other.  

The famous "cow in bridge" photo that a photographer shot in St. George, WV, just upriver from my home town of Parsons.

The good news about many of the communities is that this resolve on the part of their residents led to steady recovery, and thankfully today - 30 years later - many communities have rebuilt and people are restored (for the most part) to their regular lives.  But, the Flood was something that will linger in the memories of all of us who witnessed it firsthand, and there are losses from it which will never be replaced, including memories and even some precious lives.  As I am writing this, it is almost hard for me to believe it has already been 30 years, as many of the memories of that time are still fresh and vivid as I think about them.   But, as Romans 8:28 says, God works together all things for good, and surprisingly out of the chaos of destruction has blossomed much good fruit.  

This was SR 72 coming into Parsons from the southeast after the Flood hit.

Near the town of Rowlesburg on the day after the Flood. 

One vivid memory of the Flood that was long-term occurred after our move to Rowlesburg.  The local high school, which was originally down close to the river, was trashed badly, and a provision was made by the Preston County Board of Education to temporarily resume classes at the Kingwood Fire Hall on the Buckwheat Festival grounds.  Due to SR 72 being pretty much washed out between Rowlesburg and Kingwood for many months, the bus ride to school was a rather lengthy one - it required going down 72 onto US 50, heading west to the small town of Fellowsville, and then proceeding north through Tunnelton to Kingwood.  In the fire hall where our classes were held, the "classrooms" consisted of walled petitions, so it was somewhat crowded and noisy at the time.   I ended up finishing out my freshman year of high school in that environment, but it also had its benefits - students tended to be closer and there was less of the high school "clique" mentality due to the fact that many of the kids were in the same boat.  Kids from middle-class, poor, and wealthy families had suffered equally, and the "flood experience" was a common bond everyone shared.   However, it was also a little depressing, as at times high school resembled a Third-world refugee camp with the close quarters, the makeshift classrooms, and other "make-do" situations.  However, everyone managed well, and commendably - despite personal losses experienced by many of the students, many of them also excelled in their schoolwork too, and that spoke volumes.  

The red-brick building in the backgruond of the Buckwheat Festival picture in Kingwood, WV, is the Kingwood Fire Department, which served as my high school during my freshman year. 

As mentioned, in time life slowly returned to normal for many communities, as rebuilding of lives and communities began almost immediately.  Many communities, such as Rowlesburg and Parsons, recovered well, but also lost something in the fray - some aspects of these communities that made them unique was lost forever, only to be preserved in the memories of those who lived there prior to the destruction.  And, the Flood also bore good fruit for me personally - it was one of the things that compelled me to make a commitment to serve Christ, a step I made on a winter night in January 1986 at the local Southern Baptist church in Rowlesburg, a church which itself was a remarkable testimony to the community of service - those Baptists really stepped up to the plate then and helped a lot of people, as did the local Roman Catholic parish in Rowlesburg at the time, St. Philomena's.  And, with the upheaval of a recent move, the after-effects of the Flood, and so many other things going on with me personally, I eventually recovered and actually ended up having a good experience in my high school years.  However, the growth it brought was somewhat unpleasant and painful for many, yet the fruit it produced was beautiful and can be seen to this day.

It is hard to say whether another catastrophe of this magnitude will ever hit that part of WV again, although when Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, many West Virginians were both apprehensive and sympathetic to the plight of the citizens of New Orleans - they empathized with the New Orleans people in that they knew the experience, but at the same time I know many of them were apprehensive because the question at the back of their minds was "could 1985 happen again to us?"  There have been floods up there since 1985, and some have packed a punch, but none measured up to the legacy of the Great Flood of 1985.  Our prayer is that it never happens again, and that its memories, as well as the memories of many of what life was like in those communities before the Flood, live on in future generations, as so much deserves to be preserved.