Eight years after historic floods, Nicholas County is still rebuilding. Voters there want politicians to push for more development

Grayce Rose loved her freshman year at Richwood High School. Her cousins had just moved from North Carolina, and she felt comfortable in classrooms surrounded by family members and supportive staff.

“Everything was amazing there,” Rose said.

But then, in June 2016, floods of historic magnitude destroyed buildings across West Virginia , including three Nicholas County public schools. Rose’s Richwood High School was one of them.

The school’s students were sent 12 miles north to Craigsville, where they attended classes in a former elementary school building. There, some of the teenagers had trouble fitting in the small classrooms and using bathroom stalls designed for elementary-aged children.

The setup didn’t work for Rose. She transferred to Nicholas County High School early in her sophomore year and graduated in 2019.

Eight years after the flood, Richwood teenagers continue to attend high school in Craigsville, now in small trailers. While Nicholas County has made some progress on restoring its flooded schools, the local superintendent has said the new buildings are still years away from being ready for students.

Rose said it’s surreal that the high school she, her mom and her dad attended has yet to be replaced. When she drives past the site of her first high school, she feels nostalgic and saddened that it’s now just a patch of grass.

“You can’t even tell there was a high school there,” she said.

Throughout Nicholas County, schools aren’t the only structures residents want to see built. Mountain State Spotlight spoke with residents who said there was a need for local youth activity centers, addiction treatment and recovery programs and more housing options.

As candidates for state elected offices ask for Nicholas County residents’ votes, Rose wants potential lawmakers to prioritize projects like these.

“I want to know what they have planned for the future generations,” she said.

Voters want more development

In a small Mount Nebo shopping center, Matt Fitzwater sits at one of his tables inside of Compass Pizza. Across the room, a mural featuring a pepperoni, mushroom and olive slice commemorates when the 42-year-old opened the restaurant just months earlier.

After growing up in Summersville, Fitzwater joined the Marines and lived in Southern California for 20 years. He returned at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign a couple years later.

That loss didn’t stop Fitzwater from investing in his community. In addition to Compass Pizza, he runs The Local WV, a burger restaurant and bar in Summersville. Fitzwater said the success of those restaurants has allowed him to help shape his hometown, an opportunity he never got when he lived in California.

“Just today, we donated $100 for a new swing at the park,” he said.

But there are other opportunities he thinks his hometown has lost and should replace. He worries that teenagers growing up in Summersville today have fewer places to hang out than he and his friends had 20 years ago.

“We had a skating rink, and now we don’t. We had a youth center, and now we don’t,” he said. “I wish I had time and the resources to bring something like that back, but it’s very expensive.”

Nicholas County residents say it’s not just the needs of the younger generation that aren’t being met. Drinking iced tea on her porch in Nettie, Peggy Hoffman says she and her husband enjoy a nice, semi-retired life.

But it’s a pain for the couple to get fresh fruits and vegetables, a struggle many West Virginians in rural areas face . Hoffman said she had heard someone was set to build a small grocery store in her unincorporated town, but the project was never completed.

Now, she has to drive a dozen miles to pick up the food she and her husband want to eat.

“Everything is so high — gas, food. I buy for two people and it costs me a fortune,” Hoffman said. “If I was just going right up here, up the road, then it’d be a little bit different.”

Further down Route 39 in Richwood, Brittnay Malcomb and Sasha Hayes stand below the Main Street entrance overhang of One Stop Toy Shop. Malcomb works there, and Hayes manages the thrift shop, Nifty Thrifty, next door.

Both Richwood residents have been able to treat their opioid addictions and stay in recovery for years. But the women were forced to seek the help they needed outside of Nicholas County.

Hayes said she wishes it was easier for Richwood residents to find treatment and recovery programs, like the one that prescribes addiction medication that helps her live a stable life.

“If I hadn’t gotten into that program, I don’t know where I would be,” Hayes said.

Some, like Malcomb’s mother Marla Short, have taken it upon themselves to build up the county services they see lacking. Short is the executive director of Nicholas County Empowerment Corporation, a nonprofit that runs a variety of services and businesses including the toy and thrift shops.

In addition to maintaining a child care center and a food pantry in Richwood, Short and her team recently opened up a gaming center where teenagers can hang out. While she would prefer that the county’s kids would spend more time outside, she’s glad there’s now another space in town for them to be together.

“They play Fortnite,” Short said. “Crazy things.”

Still, there’s only so much Short feels like she can build. In the midst of rising homelessness across the state , she worries about the lack of safely-constructed homes for Nicholas County residents.

“Housing is horrible,” she said. “And there’s so many people homeless. And there’s not people worrying about it.”

‘It was hard to just leave’

Rose, the woman who transferred from Richwood High School after it flooded, has stuck around Nicholas County. She’s now a barista at the Honeybee Coffee and Donut House in Summersville, which remains her hometown.

In a state where lawmakers frequently lament the high percentage of young people moving to other places, the 23-year-old has done what she can to stay close to the communities she feels closest with.

“I knew so many people,” Rose said. “It was hard to just leave.”

But she hopes politicians don’t mistake her commitment to her county as contentment for the way it’s been run. She said this year’s candidates should take time to engage with and prioritize younger Nicholas County residents.

“Then, I feel like more people would vote.”

Eight years after historic floods, Nicholas County is still rebuilding. Voters there want politicians to push for more development appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.