SUMMERS COUNTY- I would be remiss if I did not do today’s story on the flash river flood of 2016 that occurred a decade ago tonight on the Greenbrier River.
It had been an unusual weather event for the better part of that week in West Virginia, with countless days of severe thunder and lightning storms, as well as flash flooding around Summers County. But June 23, 2016 was just different with an ominous feel in the air that morning.
The day started out as it had been that week with a muggy feeling and afternoon storms. There was hard rain in Summers County, but I nor anyone else knew what was occurring just upriver would lead to a destructive 1000-year flood event. As the day progressed, like I said, it had been pouring rain all day but nothing that would ever make you think we would see what was hopefully a once in a lifetime event that night.
My aunt, who worked at Country Roads Store, called mom and I and hastily said get on Facebook and see what is going on in White Sulphur Springs now. So, I did, and the first thing I saw was the house you see in the photo on fire slamming into the bridge. The thing is that this was occurring on what is only a decent size creek that runs through town but had turned into a raging river!
We all know what comes up must come down and in that case that means downstream to the Greenbrier River in Summers County. All of us locals commenced to help remove the important and most valuable merchandise from Country Roads Store, the local citizens of Pence Springs have always banned together for any flood event since the store’s opening in the 1940’s. It wasn’t long before it was making national news and personal photos were popping up by the thousands on social media sites. We worked diligently for hours that night until we all had to stop with exhaustion, having saved the main expensive merchandise.
But something just wasn’t adding up from what we all had been seeing on our phones.
We all ended up out along Route 3 facing the river, looking for the water. I was chatting with my cousin in Alderson, and she had been giving me points of reference to where the water was at that time. I turned and looked at dad and said: “if the water is to (various points of reference to which we were texting back-and-forth) by now shouldn’t it be in the store by now?” I am a bit of a weather nerd and had tracked the river for two decades at that point since the flood of 1996. And even had it to the point of the exact footage it would take to enter the store. It was 18.2 feet before the main floor was raised in 2012 five inches.
He said “yes” and about that time we all heard something and looked down. It was droves of field mice running out of the field. We all looked confused and as it turns out they were running for higher ground! If you are a local, you know that any flood, the water always backs into the low spot on the right side of the field and crosses Route 3 across from the Exxon sign. This time was different! The water came across the field from the left with a vengeance, tossing round bales of hay as it was rising.
Someone said we better get out of here and dad said, “GET IN YOUR VEHICLES NOW AND GET OUT OF HERE!” So, we did and woke up to the scenes like you see in the second photo. This was taken about the time the water had crested. It made it to 22-feet even. The flood of 1996 was 24.33-feet. This ’16 flood was 2-feet less but was more destructive than 96 as people had very little time to prepare or save anything.
I could go on for hours about this event. But the two things that stick in my memory the most was the smell of gasoline in the air and being able to see it floating on the water. That and on one of my trips out sight-seeing that day, I went as far as the water would let me in front of the Pence Springs Flea Market parking lot and I could see big catfish swimming in Route 3. They had washed out of the Catfish Hole in Pence Springs.
If history repeats itself, we have a big flood on the Greenbrier River every 11 years. There was a 20-year lull between the last 2 floods, but we are due for one in 2027 if the 11-year pattern repeats itself like it had been since the early 1960s.
Only time will tell.
