Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 08:45:12 EDT
Summary: USGS flood response continues in southeastern West Virginia following devastating flooding on June 23, 2016.
Significant flooding occurred in the Gauley, Elk, and Lower Greenbrier basins in West Virginia and the Upper James and Roanoke basins in Virginia. Intense, localized rainfall fell during the day on June 23, 2016, along a path from Charleston, WV to Roanoke, VA, resulting in flooding in many areas. Rainfall amounts totaled between 2 and 10 inches along this path, with the heaviest rain falling in the Greenbrier and Upper James basins.
In the wake of this catastrophic flooding, crews from the VA-WV WSC have continued to work through the past week collecting data to document the flood. During the past week, the VA-WV deployed 15 personnel to the field and they flagged high-water marks at 11 streamgage locations for indirects, verified peak stages at 8 other streamgages, conducted 7 discharge measurements, repaired one damaged streamgage, and identified the peak stage at numerous inactive stations in West Virginia.
A FEMA Mission Assignment has now been issued for this event. The USGS has been tasked to "provide real-time field measurements, daily reporting of water heights in direct support of federal response operations for inland flooding related to severe storms of June 2016." The USGS will be locating high-water marks at ungaged locations and determining those elevations, providing this information to FEMA using the Short Term Network (STN) database, and conducting flood frequency analyses where practical as directed by FEMA. Eight locations have been identified for high-water mark data collection and five, or more, locations have been identified for potential indirect discharge measurement surveys. The USGS has 14 days to carry out this mission.
The WV Department of Highways was very supportive of this mission and provided 6 subscriptions to their RTN network for use by the USGS field teams. Having access to this network could dramatically increase the efficiency of the field teams in determining high water mark elevations in the field.
Numerous WSCs and OSW have offered field support for this mission. A crew from NC is beginning work today, two more teams are planned to be on the ground by July 4, and even more on Tuesday. Field conditions are difficult with numerous roads and bridges still not passable, but the great folks from the WV WSC have been doing an excellent job directing others around those areas.
A lot of great work has already been accomplished for this event and with the assistance of other WSCs and OSW, this will continue at an even larger scale. To the field crews, great job so far, keep up the good work, and be safe.