Dean Hanson takes pictures of his hay bales that were swept over a road in Caldwell Friday morning.
A column by Pamela Pritt, reporter for The Register-Herald
BECKLEY, W.Va. — Along with the floods that devastated our region Thursday came a flood of memories.
It was 1985.
It was 1996.
And then, it was Marlinton.
The ’85, was, of course, the worst in the town’s history. Combined with the completion of the Bath County Pumped Storage Project that had bolstered employment, business and population up until 1985, it was a devastating blow Hurricane Juan dealt my little home town.
National Guard helicopters and trucks were just about all the traffic allowed in the town. Residents and business owners mucked mud for days, wondering what could be — or should be — saved.
Just 11 years later, 1996 brought us two floods, one in January, one in May.
That year, instead of being holed up in the bank under guard counting money to be returned to the Federal Reserve, I was at The Pocahontas Times. The January flood got us good…
