Photo by Emma Delk OV Mutual Aid volunteers throw away pieces of foam insulation removed from the walls of a Triadelphia home flooded on Saturday, June 14. From left, Jenna Derrico, Jes Arnold and Betsy Delk.

WHEELING — On Sunday, I set out with a team of Ohio Valley Mutual Aid volunteers, with only an address to a Triadelphia home. We would spend the afternoon cleaning up from the flash flooding that hit the region on June 14.

OV Mutual Aid sends teams of three to five to help flood victims who have requested help from the organization. My group on Sunday had four: my mother, Betsy Delk; Jenna Derrico; and Jes Arnold.

We had little information about what assistance the homeowner needed — all we knew was they wanted help. Our car was filled with supplies for any scenario, from shovels for mucking out basements to disinfectant to clean floors.

Our group had a range of experience when it came to flood recovery. My mother and I were green to the process. Derrico, 38, had mucked out a basement for the first time on Saturday. Arnold, 32, began volunteering last Monday and had already mucked out multiple basements.

Arnold was already covered in mud on Sunday from a previous job she had done earlier that day. She observed that the number of volunteers had declined since the beginning of last week as both interest in volunteering began to decrease and people became “a little exhausted.”

“I think there are a lot of people who are happy to give money and supplies, but labor is a finite resource, and people are getting exhausted,” Arnold said.

Sunday would be a particularly brutal day for flood recovery due to a heat wave hitting the Ohio Valley, bringing a high temperature into the mid-90s. From speaking with other volunteers, I knew a looming concern was hardening mud that would make flood recovery even more difficult, and the heat wave would only speed up this process.

The house we headed to on Rentchler Avenue was only five minutes from OV Mutual Aid’s base at the Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum. Before we reached our destination, we dropped off bottles of vinegar at another house in Triadelphia.

My mother rolled down her window and shouted, “We have vinegar!” at the homeowner on her porch, scrubbing mud off a chair. The homeowner was relieved as my mother handed off the supplies.

We then headed further down the road to the house where we would spend the rest of the afternoon. When we arrived, the house appeared empty from the outside, and Arnold went to the back of the residence to see what we needed to do.

The house had a lawn that spread out to Little Wheeling Creek. There was a back porch and evidence around the property that the resident was a gardener. Rose bushes and other flowers were planted around the side of the house, caked with mud but still standing.

Arnold returned to let us know there was work to be done, and we began unloading supplies. Our time would be spent entirely working in the basement, which had already been mucked out.

We walked around the side of the home and down a small set of steps to reach the basement. The room was dark as power had been cut off, and it was difficult to hear over the loud whir of a generator powering various tools and fans.

Another volunteer working there gave us a rundown on what we needed to do. Using hammers, crowbars and other tools, we would scrape out foam insulation in the space between the walls and the house’s rafters.

To reach the foam squares, we stood on benches, buckets and ladders. Scraping each block took 20 to 30 minutes.

Even though we were working in the cool basement, I could feel the humidity and heat as we began to work. Five minutes into the project, my shirt was soaked through with sweat.

The work was largely done in silence, as the generator drowned out any possible conversation. Though it was quiet between us, I felt a sense of camaraderie as we worked, united in doing whatever we could to help someone in need.

As chunks of white foam floated to the basement floor, other volunteers frequently walked by, offering water and Gatorade. I eventually learned that one woman who stopped by multiple times to offer fluids was the homeowner, Sara Stevens.

During one of my breaks from the foam scraping, I hopped off my bench to speak with Stevens. Despite the situation, she was in good spirits and eager to share her flooding story.

Stevens lived in the house with her husband, Alan, 5-year-old daughter Alexis, Alan’s service dog Bruno and two cats. They were having dinner on Saturday, June 14, when Stevens received a notification on her phone warning of flash flooding in the area.

“Like all other notifications, you just kind of swipe up on it,” Stevens said. “Then we lost power, so we went out and sat on the porch. I’m sitting there and it’s quiet, so I walk down the creek.”

The creek was as low as Stevens had ever seen, and it was not even raining at their house. Seven minutes later, when she headed back out to check the creek again, it was the highest she had ever seen.

Stevens immediately headed to her neighbors near the creek to help them move important items from their home. When she returned, water had already begun to enter her basement.

“It was 9:12 (p.m.) when we went to help our neighbors, and by 9:42 our house was underwater,” Stevens said. “I ran back down to our house to unclog and open the drains in our basements that we had covered. By then, the water was up to my arm, and the basement door was doing the best it could while water was shooting out the sides. The door just busted open like a scene from the ‘Titanic.'”

The family’s departure was hectic. The power was out, and Alan had to search for his truck keys while Sara waded across knee-deep water with their cats in her arms.

The family was able to evacuate the house safely. They now remain safe — but separated — as they begin to rebuild what was lost.

Alan, a retired army veteran, is currently in the hospital for back pain he acquired from cleaning their house. I learned that many other volunteers in the house were with VetPets, a nonprofit that supports veterans and first responders through animal-assisted interventions.

The Stevens’ daughter has been staying with friends since the flooding.

“We’ve just been kind of jumping around,” Sara Stevens said. “We’re trying to get the mud out and clean. We have to rip the whole house apart and go back to the foundation.”

Stevens remained hopeful in such a difficult situation by looking down her street to see the countless neighbors and volunteers rolling up their sleeves.

“Everybody’s busy with life, but then you look down our street and see the volunteers and neighbors helping each other,” Stevens said. “Everybody has questioned humanity before, but you don’t have to question humanity today.”

I was touched by Stevens’ remarks and ruminated over her words as I returned to my foam scraping. She reinforced the importance of volunteer efforts during the flood recovery to me, as even our simple job would take hours to complete.

When the rafters were bare, we shoveled the piles of foam into trash bags to leave at the front of the house. As we wrapped up our work, Stevens thanked us multiple times and offered us Gatorades and water for the road.

I reflected on our completed work on the drive back to OV Mutual Aid. It took the four of us three hours to remove all the foam from the walls–about 12 hours of work between us for only one job in one house affected by the flooding.

I once again thought of Stevens’ words about how friendly neighbors and volunteers kept her spirits high: “Everybody needs help, and the community has come together.”