4 months after the flood, Clay families continue to struggle

Associated Press

CLAY, W.Va.

Peggy and Jason Conley are grateful for their new home — even though it has almost no insulation, no running water and no power.

“It could be worse; we could be totally homeless,” Jason Conley said. “I’ve seen people with worse.”

The family lost everything when their rented Clendenin home flooded June 23. So they, their 18-year-old son, Nathan, and his fiancee, Ashley, moved back to land that Peggy’s family owns in Clay County.

Jason said assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency went to the landlord who owned their rental home.

The family got “a pat on the back and (they said) ‘move on,”’ he said.

The couple, who live on the disability checks they each receive, moved into the shell of a new cabin, which they’re buying from a Hurricane company. They had it shipped to Peggy’s family’s land on Pumpkin Ridge Road in Procious.

As of late October, they had lived in the building three weeks with no utilities. They were trying to get the electric turned on.

One night when the temperature was expected to drop, the Conleys asked the Greater Clay Long-Term Recovery Committee for help buying fuel for their generator.

“I was so grateful to get some heat,” Peggy said.

The Conleys are one of several families in Clay County who survived the flood but are living without basic utilities or in homes that contain mold. As the temperature drops this winter, their situations are likely to become more desperate.

Brandy O’Brien, chair of the Greater Clay Long-Term Recovery Committee, said she fears colder temperatures and depression will be lethal to the people the committee is trying to help.

“(I’m afraid) I’m going to get a phone call (saying), ‘We found them dead,’ and that’s very realistic with the situation right now,” O’Brien said. “Very. That’s my biggest fear.”

O’Brien said there are some families who have stayed in their houses, which look fine from the outside but have mold growing inside. She said one woman came to the committee asking for help repairing her bridge that washed out during the flood. What she didn’t mention was that she also didn’t have a roof on her home.

“They don’t want to take too much,” O’Brien said. “(They say) other people need it more than them, and then you get the people that say, ‘We could fix this, but we just need a little help with this.’ Well, this stuff is going to kill them.”

‘I can muster the weather; she can’t’

James Setliff and his girlfriend, Mary Johnson, were trying to find another place to live when their Clay apartment flooded. Finding a rental was difficult before the flood, and after the flood it’s much more so, Setliff said. The couple stayed in a hotel for a few nights but they’re now living in a single-wide trailer that flooded.

The couple, who live on Johnson’s disability check and what Setliff makes working odd jobs, is paying more than $300 a month to stay there.

The purple-and-white single-wide has no electricity or running water. It isn’t well insulated either, they said. The trailer sits just beyond Clay’s only grocery store and maybe 50 feet from the Elk River, where Setliff now washes clothes. They use a kerosene heater on the porch to cook.

The couple is fortunate to have a wheelchair ramp, which has come in handy since Johnson broke her leg in a fall a few weeks ago. Setliff said his biggest concern is for Johnson. He’ll camp in a tent if he has to, he said.

“I can muster the weather; she can’t,” Setliff said. “That’s my main concern — getting her a place.”

Elderly taking opportunity to leave

But it’s not only Clay County’s low-income residents who have problems finding a place to live. Much of the property in the area has out-of-state owners with little interest in fixing up dilapidated buildings so that people can move in, said real estate agent Cheryl White.

“There are, I would say, a few landowners that have trailer parks and maybe some apartments but they’re not conducive to the needs of (flood survivors),” White said. “Maybe for one or two people, but we’re talking about families.”

White has sold real estate in Clay County for four years. Last year, she sold 25 houses — 90 percent of which were in Clay, she said. This year she’s sold only three Clay County homes.

White said part of the problem is that people are having trouble deciding on what houses to buy.

“I’ve seen some people, their homes were destroyed, and I’ve made suggestions to people,” she said. “Still, they’re being picky about where they want to live. Until the need becomes urgent, people are picky and choosy about what they want and you really can’t be.”

Properties in the county have either high or low prices with very little in between, White said. Not many Clay County residents can afford the properties with high prices.

Those properties with high acreage are more likely to be bought by out-of-state residents moving in. White said the flood has situationally affected the older population in Clay County, who have lived in their homes for decades and are taking the opportunity to move closer to their grown children.

“I have three clients that weren’t flooded but they want to get out of Dodge,” White said. “The flood has been such a blow to the county and the economy, and the elderly who are getting up in years have taken this as an opportunity to just leave.”

White said she knows of one apartment complex with low-income units. The owner of a trailer park near town was talking with FEMA about the possibility of moving 10 of the agency’s trailers there. So far, that hasn’t come to fruition, she said.

‘We won’t be homeless’

The flood destroyed Pam Street’s home and she now finds herself in another housing dilemma. The rented home where she, her son and grandson have been staying has been sold. She has until Nov. 15 to be out and she has yet to find a place to live.

FEMA was some help. It gave her $33,000 — $28,000 of which she used to pay off the mortgage on her totaled trailer, which during the flood moved 50 feet from its foundation and crashed into trees, she said.

“I’ve still got the other $5,000 in the bank waiting to buy something,” Street said.

But she’s concerned about going into debt. At 60, she’s ready to retire from the state of West Virginia, where she’s worked for 18 years at the Department of Health and Human Resources.

“My plan is to find a piece of property, put a single-wide trailer on it. I’d be happy with that,” she said.

So far she hasn’t found a suitable place to live, she said.

“I’ve looked at a couple trailers,” she said. “One was so small I couldn’t get my bed in there.”

Street says her plan now is to pack up her things and put them in storage. She has some friends with whom she can stay. Her son will also have to stay with friends.

“We won’t be homeless,” she said.

‘What are they supposed to do?’

Ashley Truman knows about the toll the flood has taken on Clay County’s mental health. Truman, a Clay County resident herself, is part of a two-person crisis-counseling team dispatched to help flood victims. The PRO WV program is funded through a FEMA grant and administered by the state DHHR. Truman goes door to door talking to flood survivors, and when necessary, linking them with mental health services at Prestera.

“We just tell them who we are and what we do and that we’re crisis counselors,” Truman said. “We just sit down and talk to them.”

Truman said she’s talked to some survivors who are suicidal, some who haven’t yet signed up for FEMA help and still others who are living with mold inside their homes.

“They’re struggling,” she said. “Still this far out, there are a lot of people struggling. They’re mainly frustrated because they didn’t get enough money from FEMA or FEMA denied them.”

For many people, the distress is from the flood and a number of other problems.

“(Maybe) they lost their job and the flood hit, and they just moved here and bought a house and they’re out,” she said. “And FEMA gave them $30,000 for their $160,000 home. What are they supposed to do? They’re so upset about it.”

The home Jeremy Holcomb shares with his wife and their three kids was not destroyed in the June 23 flood. They live on Beechy Ridge — on what he believes to be the second highest elevation in the county. But the rain that day came off the mountain with such volume that it seeped into the home’s flooring, causing mold to start to grow, he said.

The family was staying in a camper at Holcomb’s in-laws’ house during a power outage after the flood. They knew something was wrong as soon as they walked into their home to check on it, he said.

“From the first time we walked through the door it was like it hit you in the face,” Holcomb said. “It was strong and it smelled bad. After that we knew we couldn’t move back into the house.”

But after FEMA turned down their request for assistance, telling them the house was livable, they cleaned it as best they could and moved back in. FEMA told them the house had $400 worth of damage, but a contractor estimated it would cost more than $13,000 to have the mold removed.

It’s starting to make at least one of their children sick, Holcomb said. The Holcombs’ 12-year-old daughter, Grace, developed a cough “almost instantly,” after they moved back in, he said. She was later diagnosed with asthma and a severe allergy to mold. Their 6-year-old, Charity Faith, more recently started coughing, but the family hasn’t taken her to a doctor yet, Holcomb said.

Holcomb said he isn’t sure what to do now. Holcomb and his wife are lifelong Clay residents. They’ve been working on their house for 12 years and would like to stay there.

Holcomb, a former coal miner before he was laid off, now works seasonally as a fire patrolman for the state Division of Forestry. He also pastors a church and works odd jobs. His wife provides respite care for her disabled sister. They can’t swing the $13,000 it would cost to have the contractor remove the mold.

“We like the location and we like the house, but still, living in a house that causes your kids to be sick, we can’t do that either,” Holcomb said.

A number of the family’s farm animals were killed after an animal got to them after the flood when they were living elsewhere, he said. It wasn’t directly caused by the flood but had they been home, he could have prevented it, he said. Still, he knows there are other people who have lost more and are suffering more, he said.

“I don’t want it to look like that I’m whining and complaining about anything, because even though it’s been tough, life’s still pretty good,” Holcomb said. “I don’t want anybody to take me the wrong way. I do just want to make it known that there are people that’s still in need.”

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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, http://wvgazettemail.com.