FAIRMONT – All (underwater) roads lead to Marion County?
That’s how it seemed during Wednesday’s spate of heavy rains that lasted through most of the day and evening in the Fairmont area.
At least seven roadways, mostly around the city’s East Side, were closed due to high water at the height of the storm.
However, they were all reopened Thursday after the skies had cleared, authorities said.
The rains in the county came nearly a year after last summer’s Father’s Day flood, which swamped homes and businesses, while causing the partial collapse of an apartment building near Fairmont State University.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Monongalia County, Jim Smith, who directs MECCA 911, reported that first responders were kept busy by downed trees on the western end of Mon – along with partially submerged roadways in Dellslow and other flood-prone areas across the county.
“We handled a lot of backed-up storm drains,” he said.
It was all part of the same storm system that infamously drenched the seniors of Morgantown and University high schools, as they went forth in their outdoor commencement ceremonies last Friday night.
Said storm originated in the Gulf last week before arching its way up the Appalachians, reported Chad Merrill, a former television weatherman in southern West Virginia who now works as a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.
Some places were hit harder. A woman drowned after her car was swept away by floodwaters in rural Mississippi.
Most of West Virginia, including Mon County, he said, has languished in a drought for the past year.
The most recent weather, he said, eased that climate burden just a bit.
And one person’s flood, he said, is another person’s boon.
“Farmers like the steady rains for their crops,” the meteorologist said, “but the Army Corps of Engineers like the deluges that are all at once for the rivers.”
All-at-once weather in the summer is the meteorological byproduct of El Nino, a naturally occurring phenomenon that leads to warming waters in the Pacific Ocean.
In West Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic this summer, that means a week or so stretch of no rain, followed by a two-day run of all kinds of rain.
Especially into July, he said.
Meanwhile, AccuWeather is calling for a sunny, pleasant Friday, with a high of 76. Look for sunny skies and temperatures to remain in the 70s for the weekend, the forecaster said.
