June 26, 2026, 12 PM ET via Zoom
June 26, 2026, 12 PM ET via Zoom: This webinar examined the long-term social, environmental, and economic impacts of the devastating 2016 floods in West Virginia. This webinar focused on what often gets overlooked – the prolonged recovery challenges faced by communities and the lessons learned for building climate resilience in Appalachia.
EVENT FOLLOW UP
Access the event slide deck here.
If you want to get involved in moving this work forward, a great first step is to sign up for emails from WV Rivers to make sure you are in the know on their work to advocate for flood resiliency solutions in WV! – https://act.wvrivers.org/a/emailsignup
And if you want to get in touch with our Coalition, or join our regular calls, or help out in some way, let us know! https://www.appfloodpolicy.org/contact
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View the Recording on Zoom | View or share the recording on Facebook.
Here is a link to the slides shared during the webinar.
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Thanks to our speakers,
- Lora Pierce, Disaster Services Specialist, Catholic Charities West Virginia, ccwva.org
- David Lumsden, Board Chair, WV VOAD, www.wvvoad.org
- Autumn Crowe, Deputy Director, WV Rivers, wvrivers.org
Moderator: Brendan Muckian-Bates, Policy & Advocacy Associate, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, aclc.org
There were many wonderful resources shared in the chat by speakers and attendees, we have captured those below:
Learn more about the Appalachian Flood Resilience Coalition:
- If you want to stay up to date on our events: https://www.appfloodpolicy.org/events
- We put out research fairly regularly so check in here: https://www.appfloodpolicy.org/research-reports
- Reimagine Appalachia put together this timeline and the report about impacts from recent FEMA changes on disaster readiness, linked here: https://www.appfloodpolicy.org/fema-timeline
Great maps:
- The Atlas of Disaster – provides information on the impacts of natural disaster by county – there is one for every state, here is WV’s: https://rebuildbydesign.org/west-virginia/
- WV Flood tool: The West Virginia Flood Tool is designed to provide floodplain managers, insurance agents, developers, real estate agents, local planners and citizens with an effective means by which to make informed decisions about the degree of flood risk for a specific area or property. https://www.mapwv.gov/flood/
- Storymap that shows locations of streamgages alongside flood risk – makes it clear that we don’t have enough streamgages for early warning for at risk communities: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/82dd8c01883346baaf704ddfbd13fb1f
- This map and model provides prediction of expected large flood magnitudes and flood frequency relationships – visit the Flood Potential Portal for more information (https://floodpotential.erams.com).
- The Flood Status Portal (https://floodstatus.erams.com/) is available for monitoring current, latest, and recent flooding across the United States, including West Virginia.
Resources for communities:
- Many resources for community planning can be found at the West Virginia Flood Resiliency Framework website: wvfrf.org
- A best practices guide on the WVFRF: https://data.wvgis.wvu.edu/pub/RA/HL/PL/State/WVFRF/Best-Practices-Guide_Establishing-COADS-in-Disasters.pdf
- The American Water Resources Association did a study a few years ago on flood and drought resilience case studies. See https://www.awra.org/AWRA/Members/Publications/AWRA_Reports.aspx
Case studies of flood resilience projects:
- Chehalis Basin (Washington State). They’ve continued to do a really nice job of flood resilience, and habitat restoration. There is now an office in the Washington State Dept. of Ecology focused on flood resilience in the Chehalis. https://ecology.wa.gov/about-us/who-we-are/our-programs/office-of-chehalis-basin
- The Appalachia Flood Resilience Coalition also released this doc late last year, not WV specific but Appalachia specific: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/681e26f436419e066a725374/t/6931a2d8c7a2db38d81de8a0/1764860632108/AFRC_NatureBasedCaseStudies_Dec2025_FINALv2.pdf
- This is also a helpful case study of mine land reforestation and related impacts including flooding and beyond, specifically in Appalachia. https://www.appfloodpolicy.org/s/ARRI-Case-Studies-Report-2.pdf
- Example from Fort Collins, CO: https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-study/planning-future-floodplain
- A different topic is flood warning. A colleague presented yesterday on flood warning systems, including a new system/best practices in Texas. Texas now has a guide; see https://www.westconsultants.com/2026/02/24/twdb-flash-flood-warning-siren-guide-coauthored-by-west-for-senate-bill-3/ .
Policy updates:
One source of funding that our speakers mentioned was the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program which provides flexible federal grants to help cities, counties, and states recover from Presidentially declared disasters.This week Congress voted to reauthorize the fund for three more years – though we are still waiting for President Trump to sign the bill – you can learn more here: