‘Nobody Is Coming to Save Us:’ Building McDowell County, West Virginia, After February Floods

Before February, the worst floods to hit the town of Welch in McDowell County, West Virginia, were in 1977, followed by 2001 and 2002. But now, the new benchmark for horrible flooding will be Feb. 15, explains resident Rev. Brad Davis.

Davis was living in the parsonage of the United Methodist Church along the Tug Fork River — the main level had never flooded since the church was built in 1950. But by 6 p.m., Davis moved his car to higher ground. At 7:30 p.m., he threw his cats in carriers and left because the waters were knocking on his front door. 

“This flood was apocalyptic in its truest Biblical sense,” Davis says.

Months later, McDowell County is still struggling to rebuild. 

“Nobody is coming to save us — not the federal government, not the state government, not the local government,” he says. “Nobody is coming to save us. It’s going to be us.”

State and federal support did trickle into the area, but Davis explains that there could have been a “much more robust response.” 

“How do we, as an under-resourced, underfunded community to begin with, begin to grapple with … the massive challenge of rebuilding after a flood?” he asks. “And particularly, when we’re not getting a lot of help to begin with?”

Davis isn’t optimistic about the future, but he does see glimmers of hope in the “sheer stubbornness of the people.”

“We shouldn’t be here,” he says. “This place should already be a ghost town — but yet, we keep persisting.”