Roger Campbell helped load his water-logged belongings on a one-way trip to the dump after flooding ruined his vehicles, tools for work and most of the things in his house.
“Makes you want to cry,” Campbell said. “It's like watching a thief rob you and you just got to sit and watch them. And watching the floodwaters go through your home and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Campbell said it was still good to have the ugly reminders of the flood gone. People living on Bays Drive were happy to see a house-sized logjam pulled from Campbells Creek Thursday by Kanawha County crews after Eyewitness News reports showed the problem.
Highway crews removed this massive log threatening to damage the road and jam up the creek at Point Lick. County officials urged flood victims and people working on the flood zone to get a tetanus shot.
“It will cause stiffness in the muscles and joints, which can cause long-term health conditions which nobody want to go through,” said Brittany Brown with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department. “Nobody wants to see their family members go through it."
In Fayette County, highway crews quickly built a temporary replacement for the destroyed Carbondale Road bridge after a logger made some culvert pipes and an excavator available to them. Scrabble Creek is in terrible shape still but opened up to local traffic.
The force of the storm was illustrated by a personal watercraft and its trailer helping hold up a damaged bridge.
Four days after the flooding, residents on Scrabble Creek are literally still digging out. The road is barely passable. Highway crews are at work.
“Nobody could get down the hollow nowhere. The water came through and it came through under the house. It ruined the house,” Scrabble Creek resident Michael Lanham said.
Emergency officials are still trying to document all public and private damage to see if the two hard hit counties can draw federal aid.
The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department will be giving out tetanus shots at the Cedar Grove Fire Department Friday.