Since 1977 I know of no one who has written or been interviewed about the Williamson flood. In particular, there has been no information about what the only radio station in town, WBTH , did during the flood. Afterwards we at 'BTH were both praised and vilified for our efforts, by many of the same people at the same time. It would be well after the event before I would discover why. Then there are the stories I know you haven't heard, for I haven't told them. Some may even raise an eyebrow or two. This is a very personal story, one I feel compelled to write though I have written only radio commercials, 'til now.

 

We were a handful of people trying to do the right thing.......

 

 

 

 

  Bob Hubbard, a local businessman and ameteur meteorologist, had friends and relatives that lived near the Tug Fork for its entire length. He was quite good at predicting how high the river would get. So good in fact the National Weather Service was having a problem with him. We would broadcast his predictions along with what the NWS would say and we wouldn't stop. The NWS didn't like this but everyone involved would point out to them; he was closer to right than they were 100% of the time! There was even an arguement that Williamson's flood stage had changed (according to Bob) for the river had sediment built up. The NWS would have none of this!

 

  There was a "flood wall" in Williamson then. I was told it was built a few inches higher than the highest fifty year flood. In some places it was a sensational two feet high! Looked like a joke but it had kept the mighty Tug out of town. Confidence was high it would do so again this year. The local Chamber Of Commerce had helped fund the installation of an NWS "Weather Wire" at our studios. This was a teletype link that spit out forecasts and river stages. Some of the reports came from Charleston and some from Washington. It was to help us in time of crisis.

 

The weekend prior to the disaster, my wife and I decided to visit my parents in Barboursville and go see a movie in Huntington. Little did I know I would not get to see much past the intro. for I would be paged out of the Keith Albe by our new Program Director, Bruce. Bruce was an arrogant guy who had a real communication problem. He had only been at work a couple of months and had no idea of what "procedures" were for anything. Not enough rain to cause a problem that time. But this would change shortly.

 

And thus the stage for this story is set.

 

So it rained......

 

 

 

 

  Monday morning April 4. The rain has been heavy overnight and is continuing. We at the station are worried. Hubbard calls and says he's lining up his "people" and it's not looking good. By noon the staff is considering who will spend the night. Typically we would answer phones and just pass on crest predictions and river levels on the air. By 2 PM the latest from Hubbard was a rapid rise up river but he wasn't sure what it meant. Then he started his calculations and predictions. 3 PM and Hubbard calls for Harvit and Harvit only. A few minutes later a shocked Bob Harvit calls us together and tells us of the first reports of mobile homes and houses crashing into bridges at Ieager on Big Creek. This is not good. Then, in rapid succession river rise reports of 6 inches an hour in town, then 8....10...something is very wrong here....12+!! At 6 PM Harvit called another staff meeting. Everything he can find out has river levels off the charts. We will go into emergency mode at 7 PM. This meant commercial operations would cease and the FCC would be contacted for permission for full power operation overnight. At the meeting conclusion I went home.

 

  Home was just up the street for we lived at the end of town in an apartment over the liquor store. For the first time I noted how the building was built as I went in the door. I explained the situation to the wife and suggested she should come to the station to ride this out. She was tired and sleepy and didn't want to. "Why don't you stay home and let someone else do this?" she asked. "Well it's my job and I don't want them to scare people to death" was my reply. Part of my job was "Director Of Government Relations and Emergency Operations". Sounds cool, right? Well you know radio. The bigger the title the less the money and longer the hours. All it meant was I did the license renewals and edited what went on air when it flooded. Also, we were a defacto traning station for new jocks. The school in Cincinnati was where we would get our announcers from when the locals didn't want to do it. The young man who agreed to stay overnight was such a person. I gave her a kiss and went off to a night of answering phones. Typically (by C&P count) 2,100 calls per flood day on two lines!

 

  Back to the station and at 6:46 I went into the control room and pulled the hard rock records. After 7 we normally played for the high school bunch. I also told the jock if he answered the phone, take down the info. and give it to me. We've been pranked too many times! He understood and collectively we thought we were ready for just another long night. At 7 I made the announcement "At this time WBTH suspends regular operations to bring you emergency information on our flooding conditions". No big deal, it was the third time I'd pulled this duty. We then would give all the information we had and would play a record. If we played two, the jock would give the expected crest in-between.

 

  My normal position for flood duty was in the production room right behind the the control room. You had a great view of the jock's back! There I would help answer phones and write and record the latest info. so the jock could play it (instead of reading it) and answer the phones too. Everyone had to answer phones except Harvit. He made calls. This night was no different. There are moments in our lives that we never forget even though we may want to. An instant in time forever frozen and replayed again and again. For this then 27 year old father to be, April 4, 1977, 7:18 PM is that moment.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing the usual in the production room when Harvit transfered a Hubbard call to me. Harvit sounded upset. Nervous even. So I wondered what the story was with Hubbard. I greted, "Hi Bob, what's the latest?" Hubbard was clearly upset too. He said, to my surprise, "Let me tell you a story". I thought OK, here comes a joke!  "There was a man who went out to feed his animals this morning. He had a five gallon bucket. He finished and forgot the empty bucket outside near the fence. He remembered the bucket and went out to get it this afternoon. The bucket was overflowing!" "OK", I said. "so it rained a lot". "That bucket had a surface area of around thirty inches and was over fifteen inches tall", he continued. "And I have more reports of that kind of rain all around the Big Creek area. This is why my contacts are all gone!" "What do you mean all gone?" "They have all fled their homes and stores. My trooper friend has confirmed the Big Creek stories. This is going to be the worst we have ever seen!!" (long silence) "We have moved all we can here. I won't be calling again. Matewan is lost. Record flooding!! Record flooding!! I have to go....good luck to you!"  (dialtone)

 

  Record flooding.....Matewan lost.....stories true?   What???

 

 It took a minute to sink in. Then came the tears. I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. Oh God! What to do? What to do? Calm down, I thought. You have to get this out! The call had ended at 7:18. It was now 7:25. Funny how you remember such little things, like the time. I got up and turned off the production room lights so the jock couldn't see the tears. Then called him on the intercom. "When this song ends, hit the tones and give it to me", were the instructions. The tones went off and he pointed to me. I said something like; "Record flooding on the Tug River! Get away from the river. Move to higher ground. Record flooding! Move your family, your vehicles, your animals to higher ground! Record flooding! Move to a safer place. Move to higher ground NOW! Don't panic, just get to higher ground. We don't know where this will go! Record flooding on the Tug River is happening NOW!" I really can't remember exactly how long I kept saying that. The jock wrote most of it down and started repeating it. Yes. We did play music. It was an effort to not cause a "mad rush" out of town and get someone hurt or killed. (This would later be used against us)

 

  The wife! I must tell the wife! My call was met with the same sleepy BS as before. Well, I thought, she is in a protective upstairs apartment. If it floods, I'll send a rescue after her. IF IT FLOODS? Looking back I was clearly in shock and denial. There was no "if". This was going to happen!  The next call was to City Hall. The Mayor wasn't there and no one had any information. My next call was to Mingo County Emergency Services. "No, the director isn't here. He's in Gilbert. You know the Guyan IS flooding!" Sorry to say I wasn't very nice at that piont. Who to call next? Hey! I have the State Emeregency Services number, I'll call them for help! Surprise! Surprise! The director answers the phone! I tell him of the on going and impending disaster......can he help? "I have no information on that situation. Could you repeat that?" This would come back to haunt him.

 

  Harvit's office was in the back. Had a big window looking out on the alley and the out of place little white house across the way. I went in and explained the situation. How I couldn't get anyone of power interested in what was happening, and couldn't find the Mayor. "Give me the numbers / facts, Mayor Taylor will be here shortly", said Harvit. I could hear car horns blasting out back. The rear stairs were just in front of his office so I went down to take a look. A parade!! Unbelieveable!!! A line of cars up and down first avenue as faras you could see! Everyone wanted to see the river up close! Bad idea. We needed to stop this! I went back upstairs and called the city police. The Chief wasn't there. He was trying to control/disuade the traffic downtown. So.....we made an announcement on air "please, if you are driving downtown to see the water, GO HOME! When the flood wall is breached, you will be trapped here!" Then the Mayor arrives.

 

 

 

 

  Time for a quick check of the "Weather Wire"! You remember. That teletype direct from NOAA in time of weather emergency. They had ran a river forecast earlier but it was far lower than the last report from Hubbard (made well before the "record flooding" statement). What would they be sending now? Care to guess? Weather forecasts for Washington DC and vicinity! Just what we needed. The group out front broke up and Harvit called us together. "It's getting late and at two feet an hour, the water will be in town soon. If you need to leave, go now", he said. We stayed. I decided to call the state guy again to see if he had any updated information. Again he answered. When I asked for the latest, he began reading back exactly what I had told him hours earlier. Lot of help that was. Then I saw someone bound up the stairs and into the back. "This can't be good", I thought. I rushed to the back office. A guy in boots and carrying a flashlight was telling Harvit and the secretary (I believe her name was Brenda) that the water was at the top of the flood wall and there was only one way out (Armor crossing). Leave now or be stuck here. The secretary asked, "What about the people in the second floor apartments in town"? He replied "Don't know...I'm just trying the doors that are unlocked". I know what we were all thinking and that was "What the hell are we doing"?

 

  And so the effort continued for what seemed like a very long time. Calls for boat rescues, reports of damage, requests for information on relatives whereabouts. We didn't have time to think about it.

 

  Then the man in the boots reappeared. "The water is over the wall!! It's comin' in waves over the top. The Police Chief and the Fire Chief  are on third trying to get the people out of the bars! It's over the wall"!!! It was 1:00 AM, April 5th. No delay this time. I jotted down a statement and handed it to the jock. It went something like: "The river has topped the flood wall. If you are in downtown Williamson get out now. The river is pouring into downtown, get out now"! It was in a few minutes, at a time when the phones slowed, that my thoughts turned again to my wife. I called again and got the standard asleep reply. Oh, well. But then I worried. And worried. So I told everyone "I'll be right back". No truer words were ever spoken, for as I got to the downstairs door, water against the bottom helped me open it. As I stepped out on the sidewalk I could not see the curb. Looking further up second avenue, I could see what looked like a small wave breaking against the power pole at the corner in front of the courthouse. Too late! I couldn't go get her now.

 

  Back upstairs and pandemonium. Numerous calls for boats and rescues. "Put them on one sheet listed by the time they call in and a name, if any. That way we can strike them off if we're told they have responded", I said. So many calls for help. It was almost 2:00 AM, with Williamson flooding,  I decided to call the state one more time. We needed help and we need it now! Again the Director answers. He's repeating the same thing...again! I began to argue, "That's what I told you hours ago! Am I your only contact? Hello? Hello?" The phone is dead. Yes, dead. It was 2:00 AM

 

  Wa all gathered in the control room. No phones, what do we do now? There's the guy in boots again! "Last chance. Now or never"! We stayed. We didn't know what to do next so we just kind of wondered off. But then I remembered! I had just bought a portable CB and had left it in Engineering! But wait...it takes 12 volts DC. No adapter. I went back and mentioned it to Harvit who replied, "How about some batteries"? "What batteries"?, I remarked. Well, we had a Christmas promotion where we gave away batteries for your new toy, just bring em' by the station. There was one carton unused! Great! I rigged up enough 'D' batteries to operate the CB and made a long wire antenna. We had contact again and someone, I never knew who, played dispatcher to us. We were doing rescue calls again! An there were many.

 

  The water now was about half way up the downstair front door. The door was glass and we could hear it open and close with the water.Harvit wanted to lock it so it woul stay closed and perhaps slow the water coming into downstairs. I suggested the pressure would break the glass and wouldn't slow that much water anyway. The dood stayed unlocked.

 

  The CB calls had slowed so I went back to Harvit's office. We were talking about what was next when the secretary said "There's a man out there!! He's hanging onto the phone cables in the alley"!! We all looked and there he was! One arm over the big cables against the wall. It was the old man from the house out back! "Call for a boat"!, Harvit said. The secretary ran to tell the jock. "He's coming our way may be we can get to him!", I said. We both went to the back stairs. Now the back stairs was where we stored all the teletype paper. Now wet, it all turned into a floating "mesh". I went down the stairs into the water, which was waist deep, and started parting the foot thick paper. When I got to the back door I couldn't open it. At first I thought the it was the water pressure but found it was the paper. I began to try to push the paper into a heap and Harvit started into the water. 'Click' and the door began to open! Then from outside we heard "We got him! We got him"! A boat had heard the on air plea. Back up stairs, soaked. At least we tried. All the chairs in the station were fabric so we couldn't sit down wet. Secretary or not, off went the pants so they could dry. We did have to explain why we were running around in our underwear to the jock!

 

  The CB calls stopped. It was early in the morning when we heard a report on the CB that a pregnant woman had been boated out of town. Was it my wife? No one had a name.

 

 

 

  Then there was a noise. Footsteps on the roof! Then more. At one point it sounded like a herd of cattle! Who were they and where did they think they were going? Looters? We hoped not for no one had a weapon. But no, not looters. It was the railroaders from the hotel. The hotel was the layover for the N&W. But what were they doing on the roofs? The only way onto the next door roof was through a small window. Even though our air-conditioning units were out there, there was no door. So some of us squeezed out to see what was going on. One of the guys had a plan to get down to the water with a former mop handle. Why? Because the windows had broken out of the A&P up the street and bags of food were floating down second avenue! And sure enough, bags of chips, candy, etc. were tossed up to waiting hands. This went on until the food stopped and the oil came. Oil from the tanks at the rail yard was now atop the muddy water. Some commented "What if it ignites?". Fortunately it was diesel and not gasoline. There were fires later in the day in town but the steady diesel stream never caught.

 

  I was back inside when we heard "Hey, look at this!". Back out we went and there, trying its best to swim, was a huge white hog! Poor thing. Everyone agreed it would drown. Sympathy for a hog while homes were crashing against the Harvey street bridge behind us, not to be seen again. Off and on we went out and watched everything from that hog to large tanks, to cars floating down the street. This from a river that would run up and down again in a few hours. All day the river crept up. Unbelieveable! I suppose we could have called for a boat on the CB to take us out, but we didn't. Shock, disbelief and a numbness like the world had ended and exhaustion I guess. We tried to settle in for a long night. I rigged up a hanging bulb in the news room and made a flashlight out of a coffee can for going to the toilet (we still had water pressure). Harvit came up with his goodie stash of cookies and candy bars he had hidden in his desk. About once an hour I would take the can light and go downstairs to see if the water had dropped. How long could it stay up? Did a dam actually break causing this prolonged flood? At some point, I think around nine or ten, I came upstairs with the news "It's dropped about three inches!". There were no screams of delight only a sigh of relief that it would soon be over. We all went to sleep, wondering.......

 

 

 

 

  Back on second avenue I saw what I had only seen in movies. The street filled with mud and debris. Cars in all kinds of positions. It looked like the set of a disaster movie, but it was all too real! The Harvey street 'dip' to third avenue was level with second avenue with water. And we had just had those new crosswalk lights installed! I then turned up the street to go home. What would I find? Had she been taken out? Fighting back the tears, I started the trek through the mud. In some spots it was over eight inches deep. Block after block of ruin. In front of the Lock, Stock and Barrel I met the man in boots again. He smiled and said "She's fine!" "There was quite a party up there". A party I thought? I thanked the man , then he asked what it would take to get the station back on. "Power", I said. "We'll just need electricity". He said "I'll see what I can do!" and proceeded on. I never saw the man in boots again.

 

  Up the stairs and down the hall to the apartment. I no more than got through the door than it started. No amount of explaining would do. What should have been a happy moment turneed into a festering sore for years to come. When she had calmed down enough, I tried to explain what would happen next. The best place to be was at the station, if she could walk. It would be easier to get help for her there than if she stayed home. Reluctantly she agreed to come to the studios later. I'm guessing it was about eight or nine when I started back to the station. Hopefully everyone who could come back would be there by noon.

 

The Firemen

 

  When I got upstairs at the station I was met by Harvit and the fire chief. Harvit said "I have boots for all of us" and the chief asked "What do you need?" "At least 1,000 watts of 110 to get the old 250 watt on, 5,000 to get the main on", I replied. "We've got 1,500 on the pumper, we'll bring it around!", said the chief. And off he went. Harvit asked "How long will it work?" I explained that as old as the transmitter was, the power transformer could go at any time. "Any amount of ait time would give them hope", he said. In a few minutes up came a fireman with an extension cord with the end cut off. I connected the breaker box and we had the audio rack, studio lights and the old 250 watt transmitter on the air! The studios were full of firemen and others now, and a round of applause went up that I could hear in the transmitter room! Harvit sat down at the mic and explained our situation and promissed to stay on as long as possible with any information we could get. Our effort would be short lived.

 

  In about two hours, as expected, the power transformer in the old transmitter failed. Without a bigger generator, we could do nothing.  The firemen had set up operations in the back and food was now arriving. The station was becoming a command center. People everywhere. Then the word came the governor was on his way to town. About the time I heard that, the fire chief showed up again. "I have a 5,000 watt generator. What do you need to hook it up?", he asked. "Enough number ten three wire to get from here to the generator", I replied. I followed him down the stairs and watched as he and some others went across the street to Sears. Crash! Bang! And the door opened to the store. Shortly, the chief emerged with a roll of number ten three wire cable. Seeing the astonished look on my face as he approached, he said "We're under marshal law and I have orders from the top to get you on the air!" Wow! I hadn't expected such interest in the station. I hooked it up and we were back! On the regular transmitter this time.

 

  As I came out of the transmitter room, there stood my wife. I hugged her and walked her back to the desks where the food was. The more the staff and firemen talked with her, the mellower she became. I think she finally realized what had happened was bigger than both of us.

 

 

 

 

  I was in the front when I saw a tall man in glasses 'bound' up the stairs. I knew at once it was our Governor. He went straight to the back. To my suprise, he came right back out, walked up to me and said "I fired him!". Turned, and went back to Harvit's office. Hun? What? It just didn't sink in. Now Harvit hadn't "run the board" (the control console) since his days at Beckley, so we pointed out the switches for him. Then he had the Governor sit in the news chair (in the corner) (There was a photo of this on the studio wall) and did an interview. Rocky left quickly afterward so I asked Harvit what he had meant about firing someone. Harvit was in the dark too and couldn't understand why the Governor asked for me! Then someone spoke up and said " He fired the Emergency Services Director after hearing you on the tapes"! Whoa! Gosh! I wasn't sure whether to be honored or scared.

 

  When the Guard arrives, they arrive!! In a cloud of stinking dust, they poured into town and began taking their places. Friendly, but carrying rifles that were loaded and they made certain you knew it! My only encounter with a Guardsman was that evening going home. There was a guard posted in front of the liquor store. I guess they were afraid someone would steal all those booze! Anyway, as I approached the stairway door the guy screamed "HALT!" and pointed his gun at me. I was carrying a bag of bread and at first didn't understand the problem. Next came "Where do you think you are going?". So I explained about the four apartments upstairs and the pregnant wife. He simply said "Proceed". I decided right then to speak first to any guard at the door so as not to have a loaded gun pointed at me. The strategy worked. For several days we ate government surplus canned beef, heated by propane torch. It was good....or good enough.

 

  Clean up was going to be long and dirty for everyone. Harvit had found someone to clean the downstairs and the stairwell. He had remodeled the studios not long before with the new vinyl covered wallboard. The grime came off easily and quickly. When I saw how well they were cleaning the walls, I ran into my shop and grabbed a screwdriver. The secretary said "What on earth are you doing?". "I have to mark this!" I shouted on my way down the stairs. I found a good spot where the water line still existed and plunged the tool into the wall, making a half inch long hole in the vinyl. As I came up the stairs I said "Now no one will forget how high the water was here!". I believe to this day there is a small plaque over that hole that says something like "Flood Crest 52.56 ft, April 5, 1977.

 

  The day Robert Byrd arrived, Nick Rayhall  was with him. There were several businessmen and some others in the back when I wondered in the room. Harvit was there too. After some general conversation, Byrd spoke out loudly, "Gentlemen, there is nothing I can do for you!". Long silence. Then came "WHAT?", "What did he say?", "What?". Murmurs all around, then Byrd quickly left the room. Now, sitting on a small table to the left of Harvit's door sat a Sony tape recorder with "WBTH NEWS" on the top. Harvit looked at the recorder and then at me. I shook my head as if to say "No". But apparently Rayhall didn't see us do that. He went bolting after Byrd and even brought him back to the room. Byrd then said something about SBA and the crowd was somewhat appeased. To this day I don't think Byrd or Rayhall know there was no tape in that recorder. How different would things have been if there had been? I don't believe anyone in that room that day will ever forget what our Senator said to us.

 

  Through the worst disaster the area had ever known, everyone "kept their cool". No one died directly from the 1977 Tug River flood that I know of. It took forever for Federal money to become available, but come it did! Harvit decided to go ahead with the FM and we all just continued to clean, and clean and clean.

 

  In a few weeks my first son was born, Lee. May 13th to be exact. We moved first to another apartment and then to a little white house on first avenue that had been flooded. In fact, the hog that had floated past the station on that Tuesday had landed on the porch roof of this house, and had been rescued when the water went down! But then came the day the blood curdling screams came from the bathroom. It was my wife, screaming in terror! Brown water was coming out of the tub. For her it was April 4th all over again!

 

  In a couple of months I talked with an Appalachian Power employee who told me there had been an "upper level" decision the night of April 4th, to keep the power from the South Williamson substation on,  for it "Supplied WBTH and they were directing rescue!" I also spoke with a former employee of ours that was then working for N & W. He said a brakeman had seen the Big Creek destruction but mentioned it to no one that night. Instead he simply went home! Little did I know this kind of thing was going to be a problem for the radio station soon.

 

  After a second son (James) and some internal station problems the year after I put WXCC on, we moved to Northern Virginia. But this story doesn't end there. The '77 flod would come back to haunt me again for reasons I could never have forseen! And this time I would be in Federal Court!

 

 

 

 

  It was the early eighties when I began consulting work for XCC. On my first visit I noticed all the flood tapes were gone! I asked the engineer what happened and he just said they were gone when he came. I thought nothing more of it. But the next year there was a knock on my Burke Virginia door. It was a pair of lawyers. I was mortified! What in the world had I done? "You worked at WBTH during the flood, correct?", one asked. "Yes, I was one of several that worked through the flood", I replied. "Well", he continued, "We represent the Ford Motor Company and Ford is suing the N & W Railway for running a $3,000,000 train load of new cars into the flood!" They could see I couldn't understand what they wanted and the other guy spoke up; "We have witnesses that state the radio station gave no, or insufficient warnings"! My resopnse was simple. "How could anyone say that?", I asked. The first man again spoke. "The N & W response is that the radio station played music all night and said nothing about an impending disaster!" That was IT!! That was where all the hate was from!!! The N & W employees were publicly "trashing" the station thinking they were helping their company (and no doubt their jobs were on the line if they didn't)! I was MAD!!! I went into the first part of this story when the second man stopped me. "We want you to be a witness for Ford and tell that on the stand under oath!" I said, "I have no interest in your case other than I will not let the efforts of myself and the rest of the flood "crew" be defamed like this. I will testify as to what went on at the station. Whether it helps or not is another thing. The truth needs to be on the record!" So there it was. All the animosity in a nutshell! All because of some flooded cars  some insurance company didn't want to pay for. Unbelieveable.

 

  I didn't know just how "deep" this hatred of station employees had gone until I went into the Federal Court House in Huntington. Clearly, the hallway was lined with N & W witnesses. You would have thought I was a murderer or something. The crowd was rather vocal toward me, but I said nothing back. On the stand I was asked a handfull of questions about what we did at the station that night of the flood and the questioning rapidly turned to how fast did the water rise. "Too fast", I stated. "It was near two feet and hour most of the night." "Did you have beds at the station....or cots? Did you bring extra food, batteries? Were you prepaired to stay a long time?", I was asked. "No, we were not prepaired for that large of a flood that night." And it was over. I was ushered out of court and went home to Virginia. Weeks later I learned Ford had lost for it was declared "an act of God". Interestingly there was no coverage in the local media. You would have thought there would have been for such a large suit in a small town. But not a peep.

 

  When I moved to Matewan in the mid 90's to work for WVKM, I noted Matewan was building a flood wall and Williamson had a new one. But little was said about the 77' flood. It was more like a secret or something. I also noticed when the river would start to flood, it was more of a bother than an issue for the Williamson stations anymore. Something I never thought could ever happen. From reading this story you may think I dwell on this subject too much. The truth is, I only think about it every time it rains.