Ripley Elementary School has a good-sized aquarium, but the entire school looked like it was in the tank Wednesday night when several inches of rain hit Ripley in an hour.
Jackson County spent the day cleaning up debris from flooding after the pounding rain turned hillsides into waterfalls.
At Ripley Elementary, water was 2 feet deep outside and flooded the entire building. Cleanup efforts got serious Thursday, and the new school superintendent and Ripley's mayor both vowed the flood-damaged building will be ready by the new school year.
"I know confidently that the Jackson County Board of Education will take care of this,” Ripley Mayor Carolyn Rader said. “I will guarantee you it will be ready for the children on the first day of school.”
School officials said that moving the kids here at Ripley Elementary to another location isn't even on the table. They plan to get the cleanup and fix done in time for the Aug. 24 opening.
The flooding also damaged the new floor at the Ripley High School gym even before he paint dried. Nearby Viking Lane flooded hard and then the water dropped quickly.
"Coming down the street you wouldn't have known anything had happened and then when we opened the door, there had been at least 2 or 3 inches of water in the house,” flood victim David Carpenter said.
Along Shambling Run Road between Kenna and Fairplain, floodwaters damaged homes, swept away outbuildings and turned cars into boats until they sank in farm fields.
"It's about two miles from (WV Route) 21 to my house, and I've never seen the water running off the hills like it did,” Dan Barnette said. “I put my truck in situations last night that I probably shouldn't have.”
County and city officials are trying to document the damage from this flash flood in hopes of getting federal assistance.
Over in Doddridge County, a mudslide knocked part of that county's senior citizen's center off its foundation in West Union.