'Mother Nature at its worst': Flash flood death toll climbs to 6 in West
Virginia
[June 17, 2025]
By PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — The death toll from weekend flooding in West
Virginia rose to six as residents tried to clean up with the threat of
more rain on the way.
At least two people remained missing in the state's northern panhandle
after torrential downpours Saturday night, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said
Monday. As much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of
Wheeling and Ohio County within 40 minutes. The dead included a
3-year-old child.
About an hour to the southeast, heavy rains battered the Marion County
community of Fairmont on Sunday, ripping off the outer wall of an
apartment building and damaging bridges and roads. No injuries were
reported there.
Morrisey declared a state of emergency in both counties. At least 60
homes, 25 businesses and an estimated 30 roads were impacted by
flooding, he said.
"It’s just Mother Nature at its worst," Morrisey said.
In the northern panhandle, vehicles were swept into swollen creeks, some
people sought safety in trees and a mobile home caught fire. On Sunday,
Morrisey toured the small community of Triadelphia, where five died.
“That was just pure devastation,” he said. “That was brutal.”
Emergency officials in Wheeling sought cleaning supplies, shovels for
mud removal and other donations.
Floods hit ‘like a tsunami’
Rich Templin, his wife Michelle and a family friend were cleaning out
two storage garages Monday across the street from their Triadelphia
home. The garages situated along ground by Little Wheeling Creek were
nearly destroyed by floodwaters. Templin’s home on higher ground was
untouched.
Templin was at work when his wife trying calling and then texted him to
say their street was flooded, a trailer they owned had washed away and
“cars were floating by with people in them.”
Templin said he received the text messages within 15 minutes after the
rain began.
“I’ve talked to numerous people, they said it was like a tsunami. They
saw water coming down the road like two or three feet high,” he said.
Templin used the garages to store tools used in a trucking service
company formerly operated by his father.
“We’re trying to see what’s salvageable and what’s not and just start
the rebuilding process,” he said.
Grateful in a time of trouble
Teena Libe moved her truck to higher ground during the storm, but
couldn't leave her driveway because a bridge connecting her to the road
was severely damaged. Her landlord brought her a generator after she
lost electric and water service at her Triadelphia residence.
“The whole entire area within 30 seconds was just underwater,” she said.
“It’s just a really surreal feeling and shocking how just within minutes
it was just complete disaster."
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A vehicle sits in flood debris, Monday, June 16, 2025, in Valley
Grove, W.Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Libe said she was grateful that the neighborhood's homes were still
standing.
“It just really solidifies the power of nature and how quick your
life can just be turned upside down,” she said.
Rainfall rates are ‘smoking gun’
A stalled weather system that remained over the same location dumped
the destructive amount of rainfall.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the
atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia.
As the atmosphere warms, it is able to hold higher amounts of water
vapor that can be unleashed as rain during storms.
“Where the climate change signal is crystal clear to me is the rain
rates,” said Shepherd, noting that 2.5 to 4 inches of rainfall fell
in about a half hour. “That’s consistent with a smoking gun that
we’ve seen with climate change in recent decades, that increase in
rain intensity.”
Rainfall hitting impervious surfaces like roads contributed to the
flooding and stormwater management systems were engineered to handle
rainstorms of the past, not the sudden downpours juiced by climate
change that are now occurring, Shepherd said.
"In Fairmont, there is about a 1 in a 100 chance in a given year
that 2.5 inches of rain will fall in an hour, so the amount of
rainfall that occurred in such a short time is a rare occurrence,”
said Brian Tang, an atmospheric science professor at the University
at Albany in New York state.
Tang said hilly terrain and soils already saturated from abnormally
wet weather contributed to the flash flooding.
“When looking at the statistics of torrential rain events, there is
a clear signal that climate change is loading the dice for heavy
rainfall,” Tang said.
A region prone to flooding
The region around Wheeling, about an hour's drive southwest of
Pittsburgh, has seen its share of flooding.
Saturday’s flooding came 35 years to the day after more than 5
inches (13 centimeters) of rain in less than three hours and killed
26 people and destroyed 80 homes in nearby Shadyside, Ohio.
Last year, severe storms washed out about 200 tombstones at a
Wheeling cemetery. There were deadly floods in the region in 2017
and 2022.
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Associated Press writers Isabella O'Malley in Philadelphia and John
Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.
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