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BUCKHANNON – Governor Patrick Morrisey encouraged community members to report any damage to their property through a damage assessment survey to support disaster recovery efforts.
Morrisey held a press conference Thursday to update the community on the continuing efforts to unblock roads, find missing people and continue rescue efforts.
“I want to thank everyone for being here today, and I especially want to express my gratitude to all the first responders and the incredible people who have been busy working over the last couple of days. This has truly been a Herculean effort around the state, and I’m glad to be back here in Upshur County to let people know the latest information we have available,” Morrisey said.
“Hats off go to the local teams and all the amazing work that they’ve done. We’re here at the Buckhannon Fire Department. I know that there are a lot of people still out there working tirelessly, trying to get the power restored, and we know the linemen are busy doing work, and their work doesn’t get discussed often enough.”
Aggressive search and rescue efforts took place across the county over the last two days, but Morrisey said they are now beginning to shift the focus to damage recovery.
“More roads have been reopened, and we know many thousands of West Virginians had their power restored, and of course communities are beginning to do the really heavy lifting in terms of moving toward recovery, cleaning up, and assessing the damage,” Morrisey said. “I’m going to talk about the importance of documenting that damage because that’s going to help our efforts with FEMA to be able to report that and try to make sure that there’s appropriate reimbursement for what’s going on.”
Morrisey emphasized the importance of reporting damage through an official assessment so the state has an accurate submission to FEMA.
“We do know that there were a lot of homes that were destroyed and businesses that were harmed, so we want to make sure those damage assessments get reported, and I want to note that there is a place for people to go online to make sure that they’re reporting information to us,” Morrisey said.
You can report damage by filling out the online form here.
Morrisey also encouraged community members to reach out to the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster if they are interested in volunteering their time.
“Now we’re in a recovery effort, and that’s not an effort that’s just solely driven by the government. It’s being driven by neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends,” Morrisey said. “We know VOAD and other volunteer organizations are doing some important work. To the extent that you want to be part of that, or if you want to donate, you can always call 304-553-0927.”
Two nights ago, 50 people were staying in the Buckhannon Nazarene Church for shelter, and only four people had to stay there last night, according to the governor.
“We’re committed to ensuring those who need temporary housing get the help they need, so please be aware of that,” Morrisey said. “Right now, a lot of people are coming, beginning the process, the muck-out teams, delivering meals, distributing cleanup kits, and coordinating donations from over 80 different organizations, so a lot of that is going to be particularly important in the days and weeks ahead.”
West Virginia has activated 500 National Guardsmen since the emergency response began.
“As the storm hit, our first and most important focus was saving lives, and people stepped up. I’ve mentioned the over 100 rescues, the swift boats that came in, local DNR. We had over 10 drones that were operating, 10 choppers that were busy with search and rescue efforts,” Morrisey said. “It was a real collaboration between folks on the local level and the state level, and as floodwaters continue to recede, that will help all these teams safely reach areas they weren’t able to reach just 24 hours ago. That means being able to open more roads, that means more debris being cleared, more utilities being restored and more damage assessments underway.”
Morrisey noted there has been a continued restoration of essential services.
“We know that statewide power outages have dropped. I know that the utility crews are going to continue to work around the clock to restore service; power and water, of course, remain a high priority, and we know that there’s some distribution line damage in Upshur, Lewis, and Barbour counties, and we’ve announced that there is water that’s coming,” Morrisey said.
The Department of Highways has done its best to open up roadways by removing debris, and the governor asked the community to be patient with repairs.
“We know that our highway department and our employees continue to work aggressively. I mentioned yesterday that over 3,100 people have been activated. That’s a lot of people, but there’s a lot of work to be done to clean up the damage from Mother Nature,” Morrisey said.
“We have over 1,000 pieces of equipment that are being deployed right now, and there was an initial focus on the major arteries, obviously I-79, which is fully open, Route 33, other major roads. If a citizen would like to see what’s going on in their community, they should go to wv511.org.”
