Randolph County officials provided an update on the recovery from last week's destructive storm - and squashed a rumor about electrical service - during Thursday's Randolph County Commission meeting.
Marvin Hill, director of the county's Office of Emergency Services, reported the American Red Cross had started delivering meals to Tygarts Valley High School. The free meals are for anyone who is without power or water, Hill said.
He also assured Sheriff Jack Roy there was no truth to the rumor "going around town" that electricity would be turned off in Elkins today to allow power company crews to make repairs.
Charles Friddle, FirstEnergy director of external affairs for West Virginia, also told The Inter-Mountain there is no planned power outage for Elkins today.
As of presstime, more than 1,600 Mon Power customers in Randolph County were still without power. Mon Power is a FirstEnergy company.
During Thursday's meeting, Commission President Mike Taylor said he believed "things are slowly coming back to normal" following the storm damages.
"I think one of the hardest-hit areas is up the valley in the Valley Head and Mingo area. Their power was just restored (Wednesday) night," Taylor said.
"There's still scattered outages throughout the county, different pockets, but I think our main infrastructure, with our water plants and the hospital and so forth, is all back up."
Taylor said it was too soon to evaluate the county's response to the storm.
"We will have some discussion about the disaster, if you will, at future meetings, but it's still too early to go over much of anything," Taylor said.
"I know we have expended some considerable amount of funds. We've been told most of that, if not all of that, will be reimbursable by either the state or the federal government."
Later in the meeting, Taylor said, "The county Office of Emergency Management has really done a good job trying to get food and water out to people."
He noted the county provided 500 hot dogs and other food to Valley Head earlier in the week, to be provided as dinners to people without power or water.
Taylor noted the Randolph County Board of Education provided breakfasts Wednesday at Valley Head.
"The board has been really great through all this," Taylor said.
