Community Bulletin
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BUCKHANNON – The City of Buckhannon, the Upshur County Commission and Upshur County Emergency Management are gauging where to best spend the funds raised for flood relief.
City recorder Randy Sanders spoke during the Aug. 4 Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur meeting to lay out continuing efforts to aid those suffering from the unprecedented flooding that reached numerous counties a few weeks ago.
“Every day we are meeting with the liaisons with the West Virginia National Guard, and right now their assets are still very busy covering the county, the city, and collecting the flood-related debris,” Sanders said. “We stress that point: their job is to collect flood-related debris. Now, some people may put some additional items out; that’s their decision, and they have to live with that decision themselves … We’re really trying to do the best job we can to utilize those assets while we have them.”
Sanders said people must get their flood debris out immediately so the National Guard knows they are still needed in the Buckhannon-Upshur area.
“Some people have said, ‘Well, I’m not feeling too well today. It’s been overwhelming. I’ll get to it sometime later.’ Sometime later might be too late because they’ll look at their activity every day, and if the activity of the Guard decreases below a certain level, they’ll start curtailing their assignment to the area,” Sanders said. “It’s up to our citizens to be very active to get that flood-related debris out there.”
The flood relief donation site on West Virginia Wesleyan’s campus was closed Sunday and items were moved to Lewis County.
“Our volunteers have been tremendous. Hundreds of volunteers took time off from their jobs, and many of them had to go back to work this week,” Sanders said. “They just had no more vacation left, no more leave left, and their employers have been very lenient, but they were exhausted too, so we wrapped everything up.”
The remaining donations were taken to the donation site in Weston at the old Kroger building in the Market Place Plaza.
“We’re combining Upshur and Lewis County efforts, so we’re encouraging our volunteers from Upshur County to get a couple of days’ rest and then head over to Lewis County and volunteer over there,” Sanders said. “If you live in Upshur County and you need something, cleaning supplies, some of these items, go to Lewis County. They are very well stocked over there.”
Sanders said he and other representatives have been meeting with volunteer groups who specialize in demolitions.
“We had our zoning enforcement officer from the city, Vincent Smith, and the flood zone officer from the Upshur County Commission, Terri Joe Bennett, there to talk to the people coming in to tell them what is expected from city and county officials: for them to register, for them to get a licensed electrician, a licensed plumber to work with them,” Sanders said. “We will work with them on reconstruction and work with them as well as we can. The city is waiving all permit fees for flood-related repairs, and our zoning enforcement officer will be very active to help people move fast through the system to get the permits they need to do that.”
Sanders said one of the first requests the city will make to the Rotary Foundation is to cover the housing expenses for volunteers working in the county.
“We have one group of volunteers who had no housing provided, so we made arrangements with [the former Alderson-Broaddus College] to house them there, $20 a day per person, so I’d like Rotary to use the donations for that bill,” Sanders said. “We will monitor it closely; the family of AB College is going to make another donation, if they haven’t already, to our foundation to kind of offset that because they can’t waive the fees.”
So far, more than 1,300 people have filled out the state’s damage survey, but Sanders said he anticipates more people need help.
“Not everybody’s going to fill those forms out. The Red Cross has been extremely busy, and I’m sure Mountain CAP has been extremely busy,” Sanders said. “Several families were impacted; there were some homes completely lost.”
