READINGS: West Virginia's only billionaire & the great flood of 2016
Charleston Gazette-Mail photograph
READINGS: WestVirginiaVille recommends
However you feel about West Virginia's only billionaire and its current governor, Jim Justice (and its a complex relationship, for sure), this noteworthy story by Elaina Plott reads like a movie that's both tragic and inspirational. Justice-naysayers will object to the way he is depicted, as a man-of-selfless action during the devastating floods of June 2016 that killed 23 people in West Virginia. Set that aside, then, and go along for the ride of Plott's powerful narrative of what happened to the family of one working class member of the storied Greenbrier Resort's staff when floods washed across the town of White Sulphur Springs and the resort itself. It's partly a snapshot of the relationship between the working class town of 2,500 residents and a resort that has been the playground of presidents, royalty and the rich for forever. It's also a gripping tale of how fearsome floods can be when the state's rivers overrun their banks and take out homes, communities and towns.
RELATED: Here's a Gazette-Mail slideshow featuring staff photographs that depicts the devastation wrought by the June 2016 flooding in the West Virginia heartland.
