CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) \u2014 Gov. Patrick Morrisey addressed two kinds of water issues impacting West Virginia Friday.<\/p>\n
The governor announced $9.5 million in grant funding for five water and sewer projects in Mingo and McDowell counties, including a new water storage tank in Kermit.<\/p>\n
Safe drinking water is still a real issue in the southern coalfields. So is flooding and Morrisey used a water-themed news conference to try to advance a flood warning initiative he first highlighted in his state of the state address as the mid-February anniversary of last year’s major flood approaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst rule is to save lives,\u201d Morrisey said. \u201cWell that’s what we’re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Smart Environmental Notification Threat Response System is a proposed $10 million, 36-month pilot program aimed at improving flood prediction and response. The coalfields have a history of deadly flooding. Heavy rains on Feb. 15 set up flooding problems that lasted until Feb. 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe loss of property is one thing,\u201d McDowell County Commissioner Michael Brooks said. \u201cThe loss of lives that we encountered is something you’ll never forget and hearts and prayers go out for those families as well.”<\/p>\n
The governor still needs to get legislature’s approval, which will be tough to do as the legislative session is halfway over.<\/p>\n
The system will be tested in nine different watersheds over a three-year period before going to the rest of the state if it works. The system would use artificial intelligence, rain gauges and wind data in order to monitor streams and give warnings one to six hours ahead of flooding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is in some of the higher risk areas of the state,\u201d Acting State Emergency Management Director Dr. Matt Blackwood said. \u201cThose areas most prone to historical flooding, but we are also looking at areas that offer different topography.”<\/p>\n
The focus for the Smart Environmental Notification Threat Response System is protecting lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) \u2014 Gov. Patrick Morrisey addressed two kinds of water issues impacting West Virginia Friday. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-468571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}