West Virginia Environment & Hazard Risk

Reports of flash flooding began to come in around 8:30pm, starting near Peters Run Road and Battle Run Road. The water quickly rose along Little Wheeling Creek and the tributaries into Little Wheeling Creek. Emergency management reported at 9pm that there were several water rescues involving stranded vehicles and water rescues from buildings, especially along Route 40/National Road from Elm Grove to the PA State line.

Major flash flooding occurred in and around Welch. Homes and businesses were surrounded by water, roads and underpasses became impassable, and cars were stranded. People became trapped in their vehicles on Riverside Drive before the Havaco bridge. In Kimball, water entered multiple homes, businesses, and cars. A vehicle with five occupants drove into floodwaters and was swept into the Tug Fork River. Two people were able to make it to safety while the other three occupants perished.

Stonecoal Lake Road began to flood and stranded a vehicle. At 630 PM EST, two people drowned after their vehicle was swept away by flash flooding from the Right Fork of Stonecoal Creek while traveling along County Route 7. Time is an estimate provided by law enforcement. Around 7 PM EST, floodwaters also trapped a person on top of a camper along Stonecoal Lake Road.

Numerous roads were flooded across northern Wood County. Worthington Creek came out of its banks east of Parkersburg closing the intersection of Core Road and 36th Street. Old St. Marys Pike was also closed due to flooding on Worthington Creek. Water from Carpenter Run closed portions of Waverly Road near Waverly. ||About 6 miles northeast of Parkersburg, a vehicle became stranded on Laurel Creek Road while trying to drive through high water from Laurel Creek. The SUV was washed into the creek before first responders arrived. There were two people in the vehicle, a father and daughter. Neither of them were able to escape the flood waters. Their bodies were found many hours later, after the water levels receded.

A strong storm system moved through the Great Lakes on the 11th and 12th. Ahead of this system, temperatures on the afternoon of the 11th soared into the 70s and low 80s, driven by strong southerly winds. Gusts were regularly measured in the 40-50 mph range. A line of showers and thunderstorms developed in the lower Ohio River Valley along a cold front, and quickly raced eastward through the late afternoon and evening. By the time these got to the middle Ohio River Valley and central Appalachians, no lightning was present, but the convective showers were still packing gusty outflow winds, with lots of tree and utility damage reported. The actual cold front surged through late that night, with another round of 45-55 mph winds, causing more power outages.||Shortly after noon on the 11th, a tree fell onto a side-by-side ATV near Ashford in Boone County. A 14-year-old boy was fatally wounded, and his father and sister were injured. The ASOS at Charleston's Yeager Airport, which is about 13 miles from the incident site, measured gusts of 30-40 mph around the time of the incident. These were driven by the synoptic flow, not convective activity.

One man was killed and two were injured when a tree fell on them while on a kayaking trip near Seven Islands on the Cheat River. Story reported here: https://www.wvnews.com/prestoncountynews/news/kayaker-who-died-on-cheat-river-identified/article_23cdb16e-5aeb-5a46-90b5-6eedca78115c.html.