News that Mercer County’s snowfall total for the Dec. 18 and 19 monster storm was not high enough to be eligible for federal disaster aid is curious, and just a little crazy.
Recently, President Obama declared a federal disaster for 15 West Virginia counties including neighboring McDowell, Wyoming and Raleigh counties. According to National Weather Service data, Mercer received about 17 inches of snow during the storm, while McDowell had 19 and 1⁄2 inches.
In this case, the two-and-a-half-inch difference represents thousands of dollars of federal aid desperately needed by several Mercer towns.
Last week, West Virginia Director of Homeland Security Jimmy Joe Gianato explained to Daily Telegraph reporter Greg Jordan the difference between a snow disaster declaration and one issued after events such as a flood.
“With snow removal, it’s a totally different thing,” Gianato said. “The first criteria is that the county has to be at or near a record snowfall (for that county). That’s determined by the National Climatic Data Center, or it can be contiguous to a county that had an at or near record snowfall if it has the same amount of snow.
“In this particular snow event, Mercer County did not reach the at or near record snow fall based on information from the weather service,” Gianato said.
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If 17 inches of snow is not “at or near record snowfall,” one has to wonder about the monster storms in Mercer County’s history during the month of December. I’ve lived in this county my entire life, and the biggest snowfalls I recall were Nor’easters that occurred during February and March.
Seventeen inches in two days is a lot of snow — and many communities in Mercer’s higher elevations received more. Immediately after the December snowfall event, the National Weather Service reported that Rock, W.Va., the home address of my own mail, received more than 20 inches of snow — a fact to which I can attest. But, evidentially, it wasn’t enough to push Mercer into the federal disaster declaration zone.
One has to also wonder about a “cumulative events” loophole for snow disaster declarations. Locally, the December event was bad, but it was compounded by continued snow throughout January and February.
Municipalities and homeowners were unable to clean up completely from the December snow before they were walloped by even more storm systems. Week after week after week, we were inundated by heavy snow showers.
And let’s not forget the infamous Friday, Feb. 5, when Mercer was pounded by several inches of sleet — which, unfortunately, turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, that reference is literal, and not figurative.
The sleet, which was immediately followed by another outrageous amount of snow, quickly froze into a 2-inch or more plate of ice. Many homeowners did not bid riddance to that ice until last week, when temperatures finally climbed to a moderate level and we emerged from the snow globe we’ve called home for the past three months.
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While I can not speak for every city and town in Mercer County, I do know it’s been tough for Bluefield. Day after day, from December through the end of February, I watched as city crews worked tirelessly to clean the snow from city streets and sidewalks.
The same holds true for the county. Each and every time I was traveling state and rural roads during the snow events, I saw West Virginia Department of Highway trucks busy scraping and salting the roads.
Homeowners, too, have faced numerous personal disasters. The heavy snowfalls caused roof damage for many throughout the county (we lost our storage building when the roof collapsed after the December snowstorm), and at least one Bluefield home received extensive damage after a melting snow pack demolished a chimney.
And the damage has not yet subsided. Early last week, the husband and I were greeted with a stream in our basement due to an inundation of water from melting snow. And Thursday morning we awoke to discover our rural driveway was blocked by a rock slide — specifically, one gigantic 1,000-plus pound rock — caused by saturated soil from the snow melt.
The husband and I can look at our damages as challenges and life lessons. But other homeowners, especially the elderly and indigent, can not afford such disasters.
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The storms of the 2009-2010 winter have received much press. During the December 2009 snowstorm, travelers stranded on Interstate 77 near Bluefield called CNN to give first-hand reports of their tribulations while stranded on the road.
And the weekend storm of Feb. 5-6 was coined “Snowmaggeon” by President Obama after the nation’s capital was pelted by heavy snowfall.
Whatever one calls it, the storm events of December, January and February wreaked havoc on the region, and Mercer County in particular. And the lack of a federal disaster declaration for the county will only make it harder for municipalities, and residents, to recover from this overwhelming blast of winter’s fury.
Let’s hope whatever issue caused Mercer to be excluded from the first disaster declaration will soon be cleared up, so that cities, towns and residents can begin rebuilding as they look forward to spring’s arrival.
Samantha Perry is managing editor of the Daily Telegraph. Contact her at sperry@bdtonline.com
Columns
March 14, 2010
Water woes and damage costs: Impact of winter snow lingers in region
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