"Like a Tsunami" - Flash Flooding Caught Everyone Off Guard

[00:00:00]You know, I never would have expected on June 14th that we would be the lead organization, you know, on the flood, but this is our neighbors, right? We have to help take care of them.

[00:00:09]>> The speed and scale of the water caught everyone off guard. Even the mayor of Wheeling, Danny McGruder, [music] noted that season locals had never seen anything like it.

[00:00:18]>> I was out and about a couple days after that and talking to some of the folks that had been in it, and a lot of people [music] said to me, "Look, I I've been in what we call flash floods."

[00:00:26]Uh a couple folks described this more like a tsunami. It hit that quick and that hard.

[00:00:31]>> When the sun came up the next day, the true scope of the [music] disaster was revealed. Stacy and her team immediately headed out to survey the damage and begin distributing food.

[00:00:40]>> I realized the impact um of the flooding, I think first and foremost, when I started seeing pictures of the devastation. Um and then the next day we had traveled [music] out there to get the food out to people that were working or people whose homes have been destroyed. And when we pulled onto Route 40, it just looked like someone had dropped a bomb.

[00:01:02]Houses gone, cars in the creek, cars where they shouldn't be. There was storage units that just had the doors blown off.

[00:01:10]Trailers wrapped around poles. They had gone into their neighbors' homes, and it was just unbelievable and unfathomable.