The post Hurricane Sandy news yesterday was that power would finally be restored to most of those in New York and New Jersey who had been without electricity for two weeks.  Nobody said anything about West Virginia.

At the height of the storm, whatever weather you were facing, wherever you were, was the most important news of the time.  As your weather crisis passed, whether it was weather, weather related, or just interesting, you turned your attention to the New Jersey New York Sandy Aftermath or whatever clever title your favorite news outlet wanted to give to the disaster.  The country was riveted to their televisions watching how New York City was recovering from the storm. Except some in West Virginia.

With all the sympathy and support, assistance and aid due the residents of New York and New Jersey, please don’t forget the already forgotten in West Virginia.  Thousands there are still without power, phone, water, and roads.  In West Virginia the storm story wasn’t water, it was snow.  Snow measured in feet was dumped on the Northeast counties of West Virginia in the mountains near the Pennsylvania border.  As the snow fell so did trees and electric poles and with them power. 

There the power wasn’t just for heating and cooling and refrigeration and lights.  There many of the houses’ water supplies are from wells and power is needed to run the pumps to bring water to the house for drinking, bathing, washing, and flushing.

As the snow and the trees and the poles fell on West Virginia, a lot of that fell on the roads.  Many are still impassable which is why many are still without and will continue to be without electricity, school, work, and trips to the store.   Local officials project it will take up to six months to clear the roads, the roads they were attempting to clear from a previous wind storm before Sandy hit.

Wherever disasters hit, decency follows.  Many of the residents were able to help themselves and their neighbors clearing roads with their own tractors and being able to get to those who needed the most help.  When those with the power (political, not electric) couldn’t get to those who needed to get to someplace warm, or to get to medical aid, or to get to their prescription refills, the neighbors did.  When electricity or natural gas wasn’t available with which to cook and heat, neighbors delivered propane tanks and stoves to those who then could and did.  

That some can dig their way out to help others is a remarkable story someone should tell.  If someone can get there.  While Homeland Security officials toured the devastated areas in New York and New Jersey, they attended a briefing in West Virginia’s capital a couple hundred miles away. 

Don’t take away from the efforts to restore normalcy to the coast.  And don’t forget to give to the efforts to do the same in the mountains.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?