McDowell County Posts Emergency Contacts as Late-March Winter Storm Hits

McDowell County officials posted emergency contact information as a late-March winter storm brought travel-impacting conditions to southern West Virginia, prompting a regionwide scramble to open warming centers and overnight shelters for people with nowhere else to go.

The announcement came March 17, with shelter arrangements providing around-the-clock coverage: an overnight shelter running from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., followed immediately by a daytime warming center opening at 7 a.m. Traci Strickland, executive director of KVC, explained the reasoning behind the continuous schedule. "So basically there will be 24-hour coverage for individuals to be inside, because not only is it going to be dangerously cold at night, it's not really going to get warm during the day," she said.

The concern behind that decision is grounded in hard numbers. Across the 44 counties served by the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness, last year's Point In Time count identified 587 people living outside. The coalition's Hawkins said she expects this year's count will show similar figures. "So that 587 number from last year truly represents the individuals in our state who literally have nowhere else to go when the weather gets this bad," Hawkins said. "We have had people who have died outside unsheltered in the winter before and this is projected to be one of the largest storms that we've had in decades. To be very honest with you, I am genuinely concerned."

While warming centers were more readily available in the state's metropolitan areas, smaller communities faced a harder road. "There are various small towns and cities who are scrambling to try to establish locations for emergency warming shelters right now," Hawkins said. McDowell County, one of the state's most rural and economically isolated counties, falls squarely in that category, making the emergency contact posting from local officials a critical link in getting vulnerable residents connected to shelter.

The coalition acts as a statewide clearinghouse and can make referrals to services across all 55 West Virginia counties. Residents can reach the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness at 304-842-9522. The United Way also operates a statewide referral hotline: call 211 or text your ZIP code to 898-211 for up-to-date information on services near you.

Reaching people who need help carries its own complications. West Virginia Public Broadcasting, a key source of emergency information for rural communities, reported two separate broadcast outages in the days leading up to the storm: a radio and TV tower in Bethany went down due to high winds on March 14, and a TV translator in Flatwoods had been experiencing technical issues since March 11, leaving engineers troubleshooting through the worst of the weather.

Anyone still outside as temperatures drop should make an immediate plan. "When it's that cold, it is so important to try to get a plan and get to a shelter, get with somebody that you can stay with, to try to stay out of these temperatures," one emergency official warned.