Kump House Coordinator Heather Biola is hoping to get assistance from the city of Elkins and the West Virginia Department of Highways to repair flooding and drainage problems at the Kump House. She told the Elkins Municipal Property Committee on Wednesday that the “Summer Dumper” on July 8 flooded the basement of the historic home and the pasture.

“We were getting ready to have a sale,” Biola said during her report on the property. “The floor itself and the walls were affected by the water.”

In a written report to the committee, Biola stated that several garage sale items were damaged during the storm. She attributed the flooding to several problems, including clogged drains, and claimed the DOH is causing water to dump onto the property.

“The DOH is really mistreating the property,” she said. “They didn’t make a big enough culvert. I think there needs to be some mitigation. There are several places where the water dumps onto the property, it used to be dry land.”

The written report also states that water drains from seven culverts onto the property causing a “swamp where dry pasture once stood.”

Biola requested that the city use its vector truck to “blow the clogs out from the drains under the house,” and have a city sewer department crew make improvements to a drain.

“We have to look at this or we will continue to have problems,” she said. “It is not a good situation.”

During the public comment period of the meeting, Biola spoke of other drainage problems in Elkins. She said there are three creeks that run through town that are not properly drained, and the city should explore fixing the problems.

“The creeks have been put in box culverts,” Elkins Operations Manager Bob Pingley said. “It is hard to add capacity.”

Biola said the flooding at the Kump House and other areas in town has happened several time over the last few years.

“No on lives there (the Kump House),” she said. “I feel bad for those who have their homes flooded.”

Pingley said the city’s work on storm water separation projects has helped with flooding problems. He explained that if the same storm would have hit before the Davis Avenue project, there would have been a large amount of flooding in the downtown area.

Contact Anthony Gaynor by email at agaynor@theintermountain.com.