Remembering The 1st Flood (there were 2) of '96
This story as it originally appeared was quite long and details the weather and geological factors that, over a week's time, would culminate in the flood of January 19, 1996.
If you can find a copy of that article from the January 15, 2014 Hampshire Review (It's archived in the Hampshire and Jefferson County, West Virginia libraries) you're likely to find the full-length story interesting from that standpoint. However, I'm trying to hold this column to a consistent length in order to make it more marketable. For now, we'll just focus on the day of the flood, the immediate aftermath and the changes still evident today on the 26th anniversary of the first flood of 1996 in central Hampshire County, West Virginia.
January 19, 1996; A gray and dismal dawn finds a warm rain falling on an already melting thirty-six inches of snowfall. Schools are closed for the day, though we aren't sure why. I attempted a trip to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia in pursuit of a check in a stable tackroom. I came across several areas of high water and was eventually stopped by police and told that parts of U.S. Route 50 were impassable. Back home, I found Steph and our three daughters standing in the back yard watching the rising North River.
The snow, rain, and fog in the gray morning light with the browns and grays of trees, fences, rocks, the flooded river—the tall girls dressed in grays, dark blue, brown, and white combine to give the appearance of a 19th century Impressionist painting, "Les Deluge de la River Norte."
Cars, trucks, RV's and so forth were being driven or towed from homes close to the river and parked on higher ground. Though some residents did not approve of these vehicles appearing in their in their yards without prior arrangement, they were expected to just shut up and live with it. This is a disaster and not a time for neighborhood politics.
We had lived here along the North River for eight years and I thus considered myself the local expert on the river's habits. In previous high-water events, the river would reach a certain height then seem to "break over" into some low-lying areas and thus cease rising. Applying this principle, the homes along the river should be safe. Even the high water marker from the historic flood of 1985 suggested that they would be missed by the worst of the rapidly rising North River.
Our terrain, along with the river's elevation and other factors, combine to cause a regional oddity. We are left with two types of floods: The larger rivers such as the Potomac and the Cacapon may swell to disastrous proportions while the smaller rivers swell only moderately. For example, the tiny town of North River Mills, West Virginia, within sight of the North River, was isolated for a time but was otherwise untouched by the flood of 1985. At the same time, the damage caused by the larger Potomac and Cacapon rivers is legendary.
Occasionally, the opposite happens. The river never did "break over" as expected and very soon, there was more than five feet of water in the homes close to the river. Our place, being the closest to the water but still high enough to be unaffected, became the disaster relief station supplying bathrooms, coffee, sandwiches, and telephone. (No cell service there back then.) Stephanie went into high production pizza making mode. The girls served the folks in the house and in the garage where I had lighted the wood stove.
I was sent out for ingredients and, en route, found a crowd of residents of a riverside trailer park standing at the edge of US Route 50 watching their homes submerge.
Charles Malick and I then went to work helping a neighbor evacuate. We waded through knee-deep, ice-cold January flood water without the benefit of hip waders. The trick is to keep moving. The pressure of the water causes one's blue jeans to compress tight around the ankle providing a sort of rudimentary seal. If you stand still for a moment and the material hangs limp, lace-up leather work boots fill up with icy water and your done for.
Of course, this method was only good for a few passes between the home and the road where we loaded the trappings of modern life—TV, VCR, computer—into the warm, idling Ford Bronco. This seemed frivolous in a way, considering that folks only a few yards away had lost everything. But this was not the time for these thoughts—just do the work.
The water subsided abruptly—