By Mike Tony
Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON — Next week will mark 10 months and six months since flood events devastated Southern West Virginia and Northern West Virginia, respectively, prompting federal disaster declarations and leaving a combined 12 people dead.
West Virginia officials counted steep costs beyond the incalculable loss of life and reported lingering recovery efforts to state lawmakers at an interim legis-ative session meeting Tuesday, demonstrating the massive and potentially soon-to-grow liabilities the flood-prone state’s taxpayers bear amid Federal Emergency Management Agency downsizing and turmoil under the Trump administration.
Presentations from West Virginia Emergency Management Division Director G.E. McCabe and state Department of Transportation Secretary and Division of Highways Commissioner Stephen Rumbaugh indicated floods have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in recovery funding and required repair work from hundreds of state employees.
The costs loom especially large given the long-term increase in major flood event frequency in West Virginia as regional advocacy groups call for greater federal flood resiliency measures and the state faces a future of more extreme weather without budget support for the flood resiliency trust purse state lawmakers created in 2023 but did not fund.
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