If the Creek Don't Rise

West Virginia's floods keep coming

Hear y’all, hear y’all! If you’re like me, you’ve been sitting inside all day, watching the rain and periodically checking the basement (if you have one, and if you don’t, lucky you). All this rain is on my mind and—following the emergency flash flood I just got on my phone—we’re going to talk about it. Let’s get into it.

Flooding in Wheeling, WV, this weeked. (image from New York Times)

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On Our Minds

A heads up for any of our beloved readers who have a strong reaction to climate change talk: That’s what this is going to be, and so if you’re not in the headspace to do this now, probably skip to the next section.

If you’ve been pretty much anywhere in West Virginia this weekend, you’ve probably noticed the weather. As I’m writing this, there are flood or flash flood watches in 30 counties.

Weather warning map, courtesy of NOAA.

As always, the weather has hit us unequally. This time, it’s Ohio County. As Justice Hudson reports in The Wheeling Free Press, the governor has declared a state of emergency and it has been announced that five people were killed, with several still missing.¹

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this year that West Virginia has been struck by horrific flooding. From February 15-17, heavy rains and flash flooding led the governor to declare a state of emergency in 13 southern West Virginian counties. These storms resulted in at least one death and left tens of thousands of people without power. On February 6, 2025, flash floods in Huntington, West Virginia covered roads and led many to think back to the floods of May 2022. Looking further back, West Virginia faced historic storms and flooding in 2016 and 1985, to name some of the more recent.

Many people consider states like West Virginia—in the mountains, away from the coasts, not on any major faultlines, outside of the typical range of tornadoes, and a rare place to see wildfires—as a place unlikely to be touched too soon or too deeply by our changing climate. When I first moved here three years ago, that was certainly my perception. As a kid, I lived in Western Kentucky, where we lived close to the New Madrid faultline; in Tornado Alley (or close enough to it that we had tornadoes every year); and in the Ohio River floodplain. We had tornado and earthquake drills, and the Army Corps had to blow levees more than once while I was growing up. Over the past few years, the floods and tornadoes have been more frequent, including deadly storms in April 2025 and a very violent tornado in December 2021. After that, West Virginia and the Applachians more generally seemed like a much calmer place, climate-wise.

And I think a lot of people felt that way, before Hurricane Helene hit Asheville.

Many people are waking up to what experts (and locals) have long known—that nowhere is insulated from our weather, and that even places people have long viewed as “safe” from a changing climate are and will continue to be impacted by our warming world.

A Changing Climate in the Mountain State

First, let’s get this out of the way. Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming. And that’s not just me, one of your local leftie rabble-rousers, saying so. That’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in their Sixth Synthesis Report from 2023. This is not a place where we’re going to debate the validity of anthropogenic climate change, unless you’re going to bring something more to the table than the consensus of 97% of active climate scientists and 99% of peer-reviewed scientific papers.

With that said, there are a lot of places that people immediately think about when you say the words “climate change,” and West Virginia isn’t one of them. West Virginia is affected by the changing climate, however, and we’re all feeling it.

In an August 2016 brief, the EPA highlighted what a changing climate means for West Virginia. While West Virginia is warming,² the biggest threat to the state is not heat but water. As the EPA noted, “heavy rainstorms are becoming more frequent … [and] a changing climate is likely to increase flooding.”

Federal Emergency Management Agency records show that West Virginia has experienced more flooding disasters since the 1950s than any state except for California and Texas, which are roughly 10 times as large and have roughly 20 times as many people. - Thomas Frank

West Virginia is, as we know all too well, no stranger to bad floods. However, as the global climate warms, “[r]ising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns are likely to increase the intensity of both floods and droughts.” As scientists made clear post-Hurricane Helene, climate change has made catastophic flooding up to 70% more likely in parts of Appalachia.

And, as journalist, Thomas Frank pointed out in a Politico article in 2021, “West Virginia is deceptively vulnerable to climate change because a huge number of its residents live in flood zones, and global warming is intensifying the kind of rainstorms that have caused deadly river overflows across the state.”

That’s the thing about living in the mountains—most people don’t live on them, they live between them. West Virginia’s larger cities are generally on rivers, whether it’s the Mon, the Kanawha, the Ohio, or otherwise, near rivers on in their floodplains are where people in West Virginia live.

And it’s not just where we live that’s in danger—as many of us probably know from experience, our roads and other infrastructure are reguarly threatened by floodwaters. This isn’t, however, just anecdotal: a 2021 study found that West Virginia was one of four states with the highest levels of community risks of flooding (our compatriots on that list? Louisiana, Florida, and Kentucky). McDowell County ranked number five on a list of all US counties in terms of flood risk to infrastructure.

Though the risk varies wildly by county, this study found that 45% of all roads in West Virginia were at risk of becoming impassible due to flooding. (And it’s worth noting that in the most recent American Society of Civil Engineers state infrastructure report card, West Virginia received a “D”).

Not only our roads but our housing will become increasingly threatened as the waters rise. Residents who were struck by floods in southern West Virginia earlier this year are still cleaning homes and businesses wrecked with mud and floodwaters. In North Carolina, Hurricane Helene exacerbated the state’s existing housing crisis.

This is the reality and the threat we are dealing with now—literally, right now. Despite this, a 2024 poll found that West Virginians were the least worried of any state residents about global warming, with 47% of respondents stating that they were somewhat or very worried about global warming.³

Courtest of Yale Climate Opinion Map 2024.

West Virginia is deceptively vulnerable to climate change because a huge number of its residents live in flood zones, and global warming is intensifying the kind of rainstorms that have caused deadly river overflows across the state. - Thomas Frank

The thing about the water, though, is that it doesn’t care what we think. When the rains continue to fall the way they have this year, and the creeks and rivers continue to rise, it isn’t going to matter if we here in West Virginia think we need to be concerned about climate change or not.

And I know this is a lot of doom and gloom, but there is hope. West Virginia’s attitude toward climate change—the recognition that it’s occurring, that it’s man-made, and that its effects are here now—has shifted in the past few years, with more people now reporting that they do believe science supports anthropogenic climate change. This is a small step but an essential one.

West Virginia is also—I have to say—a pretty good place to need a neighbor. And, as we here at the Scout are always blabbing on about, we’re the ones who are going to save us. For now, if you or someone you know has been affected by the flooding, head over to West Virginia Housing Justice and let them know so they can hook you up with resources. If you’re someone who can help, look to your local mutual aid groups. If you don’t know what those are where you live, reach out and ask! We love to help people find their communities.

And we’re going to need each other in the days to come.

The bridge over Decker’s Creek at Marilla Park this afternoon.

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In Our Community

As per usual this time of year, lots going on in the Morgantown area.

This week is City Council week: Tuesday, June 17, beginning at 7:00 pm at City Hall. Agenda here.

Also on Tuesday, June 17, the Morgantown Public Library has Tie-Dye Day for kids in grades 1-5, at 11:00 am.

On Wednesday, June 18, Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) has their monthly community wrapping party for books to send off. Takes place at Ascend WV from 6:00-8:00 pm.

Also on Wednesday, Apothecary has its Jazz Night in the Beer Garden—catch the Isaac Viars Quartet from 7:00-10:00 pm.

This Friday, June 20, is West Virginia Day!

On Friday, the WVU Downtown Library is hosting West Virginians in WWII: In Their Own Words, at 2:00 pm.

This Friday’s summer concert is Huey Mack and Chase Matthews at the Ruby Memorial Amphitheatre.

On Saturday, June 21, WVU is hosting the Mountaineer Open Horse Show at the Ruby Research Farm in Reedsville. Everything kicks off at 9:00 am.

Also on Saturday, June 21, it’s tap takeover day at Apothecary. Begins at noon, with Imposter Pizza Popup and a cheesesteak cookout.

On Sunday, June 22, the WV Botanic Garden is hosting WV Foodways: How Food Shapes Settlement, from 4:00-6:00 pm at WVBG. Free for Garden members, $10 for non-members.

Is there something that should be here but isn’t? Let us know what’s missing from our calendar in the comments below!

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Kitchen Sink

While I’d originally planned to try and write something about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, I really don’t think I can. And so I’m leaving instead the words of Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet widely regarded as the national poet of Palestine.

I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater

By Mahmoud Darwish

Translated By Fady Joudah

I have a seat in the abandoned theater

in Beirut. I might forget, and I might recall

the final act without longing ... not because of anything

other than that the play was not written

skillfully ...

Chaos

as in the war days of those in despair, and an autobiography

of the spectators’ impulse. The actors were tearing up their scripts

and searching for the author among us, we the witnesses

sitting in our seats

I tell my neighbor the artist: Don’t draw your weapon,

and wait, unless you’re the author!

—No

Then he asks me: And you are you the author?

—No

So we sit scared. I say: Be a neutral

hero to escape from an obvious fate

He says: No hero dies revered in the second

scene. I will wait for the rest. Maybe I would

revise one of the acts. And maybe I would mend

what the iron has done to my brothers

So I say: It is you then?

He responds: You and I are two masked authors and two masked

witnesses

I say: How is this my concern? I’m a spectator

He says: No spectators at chasm’s door ... and no

one is neutral here. And you must choose

your part in the end

So I say: I’m missing the beginning, what’s the beginning?

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- Lesley & the Scout

What’s on your mind? What civic or cultural events are on your radar this week? What would you like to hear about in future newsletters? We want to hear from you in the comments or at morgantownscout@proton.me. Help us build the Scout community!

1. For more in-depth and from-the-groud reporting, we highly recommend going to The Wheeling Free Press to read their reporting from Wheeling.

2. Although, notably, West Virginia has been warming less than most regions of the United States.

3. Wyoming (48%) and North Dakota (49%) are the only other two states in the country that fall below 50%.