GILBERT — Two months after the horrendous May flooding which devastated Mingo County, the residents of Gilbert are still facing a battle in recovering from the waters that left most of their community in ruins.

Gilbert Mayor Vivian Livingood sat down for an interview concerning recovery and shared that residents are finding new problems hampering their return to normalcy.

“Many of our residents dealt with what they saw at the time of the flooding and worked to clean up, tear down and make repairs to their homes and businesses.” said Livingood. “Now many of them are finding problems and damages that didn’t appear until later and that’s creating a lot of challenges for them and for the town.”

Livingood said many residents are finding black mold forming in heating and cooling ductwork, in their underflooring and on plaster and wood surfaces in their homes and businesses. This condition developed later as a result of unseen dampness or air quality.

“When they started the cleanup, a lot of folks were thinking their ductwork and flooring were alright. But now they are finding the mold and having to tear all that out and replace it,” Livingood said. “The big problem for the town is that once the National Guard left and the dumping sites were cleared and closed, these people now don’t have any way of disposing of all of these materials and debris. The garbage company won’t take it and the city has no means of effectively dealing with it.”

There has been no help extended to municipalities in dealing with debris and waste, creating a major problem for already finance-strapped residents and municipalities without the monetary resources to pay for these items to be hauled away.

“It hasn’t helped that a lot of residents waited until the Guard left to start tearing things out. But on the other hand, in most cases, they’re doing what they can because many haven’t received their FEMA or SBA money.” Livingood said.. “The black mold though has been awful and that stuff has to go.”

Livingood also noted that bridge repair and creek stabilization are are also challenging.

“Creek stabilization is absolutely critical right now in a lot of places,” the mayor said. “We’ve seen no help from the [West Virginia] Department of Highways or the sate DEP in terms of helping residents with this. In most places, the creek banks are still unstable and residents just can’t fix those by themselves. The only place where creek stabilization work has happened is down at Gilbert Grade School and that’s only because Mingo County Schools is having Serve-Pro do the work at BOE expense.”

Livingood noted that the schools of the area were a bright spot with regards to the flood recovery efforts.

“The Board of Education has done a lot of work in getting the grade school and high school ready to re-open in the fall.” Livingood said. “At the high school. they’re right now re-tiling the floor and putting up new plasterboard on the walls throughout the entire first floor at the high school. And right now they have started replacing the gym floor there with a new one.”

“At the grade school, they’re doing all kinds of work. They’ve got new HVAC systems being installed and they’ve had to almost completely re-wire the school.” Livingood continued “They’ve had their hands full down there with both the building and the creek bank. But I appreciate the work that’s been done there and they’ve been good about keeping us informed on their progress.”

Livingood’s comments on the schools will come as welcome relief to parents who were concerned about whether their children’s schools would re-open on schedule this fall.

“They’re planning on re-opening both when school starts and I’ve heard nothing to indicate that they won’t,” added the Mayor.

The area of greatest challenge and the biggest disappointment though to Livingood has been the work of repairing washed out roads and highways with no help from the Department of Highways.”

“It’s been two months. They came and put up stop signs and caution signs on U.S. 52 at different places where the road has been destroyed and that was it. We haven’t seen or heard from them since.” the Mayor said. “At the big break-off that’s actually in the city limits, there’s been two major accidents and I’m surprised someone hasn’t been killed there.”

Livingood said that the DOH, by and large, has not been a presence in the recovery efforts. “They’ve worked on one secondary road, Stafford’s Branch, and that’s been it. We have bridges that haven’t been touched, main roads that are getting worse and we’ve tried to get them in here and it’s been frustrating,”

Livingood said that the town council had to commit a lot of their financial resources to the flood recovery and that, while she is aware the county commission has gotten some of the money the county spent back, the town has yet to receive any reimbursement.

“The town had to put a lot of our resources into the clean-up and we haven’t gotten any reimbursement. That means that we don’t have a lot of resources available to put into helping with the current problems.”

Finally, Livingood said the Gilbert business community, while devastated by the flood, is showing resiliency and bouncing back.

“As far as I know, all of the affected businesses with the possible exception of one are coming back.” said Livingood. “Most of them haven’t gotten their SBA or FEMA money, but they’re all working hard to re-open and I’m glad because we need them.”

Livingood said that one business, which she could not name at this time, was facing the possibility of not re-opening because of continuing flooding of its location due to road breakage and drain water continuing to come into its building.

“That’s an instance where the DOH has not repaired damage to a secondary road and the damage is causing the drain water to flood the business with run-off.” added the mayor. “Their decision to re-open is being delayed while they wait to see if the DOH is going to repair that road. It’s really a shame.”