Grappling with an overdose crisis and the decline of coal, Boone County residents say they lack the resources to heal their community

Only 26 miles, but a world away from West Virginia’s state capital is Nellis, a former coal town tucked away from the main roads cutting through Boone County.

Standing in front of the town’s ball field is a granite memorial for the 11 men lost in the Nellis mine explosion on Nov. 6, 1943. Across the road is the old company store. The company church still looms over the hill.

And next to that is the former Nellis Elementary School, shuttered in 2016 when the local board of education reduced the number of elementary schools, citing an eroding tax base . In 2018, community members reopened it as the BARN Community Center, an acronym standing for the communities of Brushton, Ashford, Ridgeview and Nellis.

It’s part food bank, part cafeteria, part clothing closet and part recreation center.

Inside the center, Sandra Evans and Susan McCallister are getting ready for the after-school meal rush. Today’s menu is spaghetti with parmesan cheese, salad, a spread of homemade desserts and McCallister’s sweet tea.

Stevie Cox, a retired coal miner and an evangelist, who has been preaching the Gospel for 37 years, said he started up the free meal program over the summer. The first day, they handed out nearly 400 hotdogs in an afternoon.

“We had a mob come in here that day,” Cox said.

And it doesn’t appear that the need has gone away. McCallister said, just that day in September, there wasn’t a seat open during the lunch hour.

Over the summer, the center taught children how to grow vegetables. Next month, there will be a reading program. McCallister — who Cox jokes runs the kitchen with an iron fist — said the main point is to make sure the kids get fed.

That’s because many children might not have a meal at home.

Drug addiction is the biggest issue facing this community by McCallister’s estimation. Everyone in earshot nods their head in agreement.

“Honestly, the biggest need this community has is some kind of drug counseling program in our area where they don’t have to go across the hill to Charleston for some help,” she said.

“They don’t have a way to get there,” Cox chimes in.

The challenge of connecting people with treatment

Over in Danville, Bridget Chafin sits at her desk in the Boone County Health Department, jockeying the phones to connect a person struggling with addiction with a bed at a rehabilitation program. Spotty phone service makes getting a hold of the person who needs help challenging.

The time  between making the decision to seek treatment and actually entering it is perilous. Depending on the substance and the last time it was used, physical withdrawal could push somebody back into the throes of addiction within hours of making that choice.

“You’re going to go when you’re going to go,” Chafin said.

Chafin is the director of the county’s Quick Response Team , which follows up with people following an overdose to help them get treatment. The team, in operation since 2019, mainly relies on federal grant monies that pass through the state Department of Human Services. A recent federal audit found the state didn’t follow proper protocol overseeing the funds.

Like the rest of the state, Boone County has been hit hard by drug addiction. Last year’s preliminary data from the West Virginia Health Statistics Center shows 23 people died of a drug overdose in the county, the highest number since 2011 .

The state has made strides to combat the issue, whether on the legal side, with harsher penalties for drug distribution or by expanding Medicaid to cover rehabilitation services.

Over the last few years, Boone County’s delegation to the Legislature hasn’t sponsored much on drug treatment. Del. Josh Holstein, a Republican, has pushed for a bipartisan bill to give tax incentives for employers who take a chance on someone in recovery.

Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, backed a measure in 2023 that outlawed new drugs hitting the streets – and inadvertently banned the testing strips users can deploy to make sure their drug of choice isn’t tainted. Lawmakers reversed that in the last regular session .

Sen. Rupie Phillips, R-Logan, Stuart and 11 other senators also cosponsored a bill last year that would make simple possession a felony . It ultimately failed.

Chafin said over time, the mission of the QRT has changed. They’ve gone from coming out after an overdose to handing out Naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, ahead of time to prevent deaths in the first place.

But one consequence of Naloxone distribution is the total amount of overdoses has become a harder number to track.

“People are so at hands with Naloxone these days that as long as it’s not extreme, they just pretty much take care of their own overdoses, and no one even calls 911,” she said. “The amount of overdoses that actually happen in this county is really unknown and far more than we know about.”

But outside of a 28-day detox, a small sober-living home and some outpatient programs, there aren’t a lot of resources in the county to deal with the problem. The QRT takes people ready for treatment to programs outside of Boone County.

The challenge of manpower and funding

Taking people for help is often dependent on manpower. Right now, the team has two vehicles it can use to take someone to treatment. When that happens, they have one less person in the field handing out Naloxone in the community.

“It’s all about your funds. You can’t do much if you ain’t got the funding,” Chafin said.

And according to a funding request submitted by the team in April, they’ve already had to scale back operations from six days a week to five due to cuts in grant funding.

Boone County Sheriff Chad Barker is a tall guy with hands the size of dinner plates. But the long-time lawman is soft spoken and to the point. He sits in a chair inside the briefing room of the department, tucked away in the annex behind the Madison courthouse.

Barker started as a deputy sheriff in 2001. His career has taken him through most phases of the present drug epidemic.

Today, the market has largely shifted to methamphetamine – it’s much cheaper than heroin.

But in Boone County, Barker said once the pills went away, users jumped straight to meth.

Barker said from a policing standpoint, a stimulant like meth brings its own set of problems. While it takes more money to fund an opioid habit — which led to a rise in property crimes — the users tended to pass out once they got their fix.

That’s not the case with meth, Barker said.

“We went from people being high, staying home, to people now being under the influence walking the roads, walking through the railroad tracks, the river banks,” he said.

But all these drug issues are just one part of the difficulty of policing Boone County. The county is 500 square miles, winding through isolated hills and hollers.

Compounding that is the budget cuts the county had to make in 2019-2020, following the downturn of coal in the area, Barker said.

Federal data shows in the last 15 years, the county lost around 82% of its coal jobs.

Between the 2010 and 2020 census, the county’s population shrank by 11% .

How all this affects a sheriff — and all county services — is a matter of math. Fewer people, less industry means a smaller tax base. That results in cuts.

“We really felt the brunt of it here at the county level,” he said. “When our budget was cut 8%, 20% and 10% in law enforcement . . . that equates to going from 22-23 deputies down to 16 deputies.”

Of the 16 positions he has left, only 13 are filled. About three are tied up with court and school duties, leaving only 10 deputies to work the road.

Back in Nellis, Herschel Evans stands next to his wife Sandra, pointing out the little memorial for men killed in the mine explosion. His grandfather worked at that mine. He was asleep in his bed when it happened.

Herschel retired from the mines himself in 2020 – he used to run the scoop underground, keeping the floors of the mines clean from debris as machinery shaved coal off the face of the seam.

Today, Herschel said while the industry isn’t what it used to be, the guys lucky enough to get underground are making more than he did.

But for him and the folks at the BARN, coal isn’t at the top of mind.

It’s the drugs.

“Everybody here has a family member who is addicted or has died,” McCallister said. “I think about one in eight people around here are on drugs.”

Grappling with an overdose crisis and the decline of coal, Boone County residents say they lack the resources to heal their community appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.