Lucinda Robertson couldn't believe her eyes. Another storm, and here came the river of water, mud and coal swirling by her front porch--for a second time. The flood of May 2 followed almost the same path as on July 8, 2001: from Worth, along the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek, down to the town of Northfork and into Elkhorn. With one difference--this year's storm was even worse.

    When the water began rising, Robertson's neighbor picked up the 72-year-old woman and carried her out of the yard and out of the water that had risen to her waist. Fortunately for her, the first floor of her house is three feet above ground, high enough to stay dry. Friends advise her to move, but the house is all that her husband, a miner, left her, and she wants to stay.

    Lucinda Robertson                                                                     The coal outside her house, a month after the flood.

    Just as last year, I follow the North Fork to the right at the intersection by Robertson's house. For the next two miles, houses and trailers have been uprooted by the flood waters, yards are now sandbars, and bridges just repaired from last year's deluge, are ripped out again.

    As we drove, we saw more coal -- lots more, as you can see in the photo above. This time, though, I was pretty sure I knew where it had come from. We turned left at Jake Porter's store in Worth, closed today, and climbed up the hill, past the handful of houses, to what I expected. Here was the large old slate dump that I had found last year. Just a hillside of black, crumbly coal leftovers. (see Worth from Floods of 2001). Only this time, the erosion was more serious. Now the hill had partially collapsed, and the coal had slid into the creek, eventually reaching the North Fork.

    There are a number of old, unreclaimed slate dumps up the hollows around North Fork. We found one last year above McDowell (see Worth) The largest may be above Algoma, where we haven't been yet. Algoma is the site of the old coal company store and other buildings.

   There is a lot of timbering around  the North Fork, too. Division of Forestry mapped a large site west of Burk Creek, another north of Buzzard Branch, on the north and south sides of Worth, two along the south side of the North Fork creek between McDowell and Cherokee and a large one east of Crumpler, on the McDowell County line. (see map on Flood 2002 home page) Forestry inspectors walked the logged sites after the flood to see how well they held up. However, they found so many old side hills of coal that they nicknamed the North Fork "slate dump hollow."

    Nick Mason, Northfork's 80-year-old mayor, was just a young man when some of those old slate dumps were created. He remembers 16 coal companies up North Fork hollow. At the time, many dumped the coal refuse straight into the streams.  "Almost dumped on me when I was getting minnows," he said. He also remembers that the coal companies dredged the streams, keeping the the stream beds deep enough to carry high rains.

    Mason is saddened by the two floods. Though he only governs the city limits, which includes about 520 people, he cares about the entire area, which he knows like the back of his hand. In all his years, he doesn't recall floods like those of last July and this May. There was a flood in the 1970s, but he doesn't remember so much water. His own grand daughter lost a third of her yard in each flood. Another flood, and the waters could take her house.

    Though Mason acknowledges that timbering and slate dumps probably played some role in the flooding, his years of observation reveal other causes as well. Most important is the dredging of the stream beds. The state Soil Conservation Agency greatly restricts dredging now, while it was common practice years ago. Mason believes that stream beds are 6 to 8 feet higher than when he was a young man.

    He also believes that the large rocks, known as rip rap, that the state used to stabilize stream banks washed out in the May storm and blocked culverts and bridges. (See photo below). Cementing over the tops of the rocks does help them stay in place, he said, and this method has been used in other parts of the coal fields.

    Large trees on the stream banks are also a huge problem. Saplings he knew as a youngster have become stately--but unstable trees. Whenever the stream banks become moist in a hard rain, the tree roots can weaken and the tree topple into the stream, quickly blocking up nearby bridges or culverts.

  Sen. Vic Sprouse, a Republican from Kanawha County, has urged the state to pass a bond issue to build dams. Mason agrees three dams around North Fork would solve most of the flooding between there and Welch. One would be at Algoma, another behind Jake Porter's store in Worth, and a third near Maybeury and Switchback.  

Mayor Nick Mason points out the large rock rip rap that was carried down to the center of town by the May flood. He also shows the trees ready to topple off the stream bank in the next storm.