CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – Today, we remember a major weather disaster that tore through north central West Virginia.
It wasn’t just a severe thunderstorm – it’s what made the word, “derecho,” a household name.
The way I looked at it in my mind – it was late June, early summer – there was nothing to stop this thing. It was time to buckle down and realize, I’m going to have a busy evening.
Tom Mazza, Lead Meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Charleston who issued the severe thunderstorm warnings the night of the derecho.
The busy evening that gave north central West Virginia one of its most damaging disasters on record—10 years ago June 29, 2012.
“The derecho began as a cluster of storms in Indiana, if not Iowa,” said Matthew Kramar, the Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service office in Pittsburgh.
Traveling 700 miles in just 12 hours, this continuous line of damage and destruction brought hurricane-force wind gusts through the Mountain State and tore down trees and power lines.
It killed two dozen Americans during its journey across the country, and the widespread power outages left thousands of West Virginians in the heat.
“You can expect power outages for days because there are not enough people to be able to fix everything in a timely way.”
Matthew Kramar, Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service office in Pittsburgh
Power outages brought crews from a half-dozen states to north-central West Virginia bringing supplies such as food, gas and ice to help the communities get by.
“You had people not able to get gas or ice because it ran out or gas stations and convenience stores had no power,” said Mazza.
But would we see the same impact if a storm of that magnitude came through today? Meteorologists say yes.
“Some of the infrastructure issues that we had back in 2012 still exist today. As long as we have power lines that are above ground, that’s still going to be a problem any time a tree blows down in a thunderstorm,” explained Kramar.
That problem seems to continuously occur during severe weather season which peaks from the heat and humidity of June and July. Just earlier this month, more than 7,000 households in West Virginia lost power after a severe thunderstorm.
