T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Belmont County Commissioner J.P. Dutton agrees with Pultney Township Trustee Frank Shaffer, not shown, when he said it isn’t if the Ohio Valley will have another catastrophic storm but when, so officials need to plan accordingly and prepare.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Pultney Township Trustee Frank Shaffer told the Belmont County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that he believes the county dodged a bullet when it comes to the recent flash flooding disaster in Wheeling.

“We’ve dodged another bullet here, and with that being said, this has been an ongoing topic for many, many years and, in my opinion, we need to start looking now at some preventive measures with these creeks,” Shaffer said. “I think we’ve got the means to do it. We at least need to come to a point where we need to enforce some type of laws to be able to clean up and keep debris out of the floodplains. With what I’ve seen, and I’m not bashing any previous people or any administration, but the state funding is tough to get after the fact and the federal funding is getting extremely harder, because I went through that in 2018 and 2019. It’s getting harder and harder to get that funding after the fact, and then when I’ve seen some major devastation, we end up having to go through FEMA.”

He restated that he isn’t trying to be critical of the commissioners, but he believes something needs to be done before it is too late.

“It’s been an ongoing issue, and it’s a tough thing to do because we’ve had state reps out here and have talked to our senators about this. But we have to do something, guys, and I’m willing to put forth some effort,” Shaffer said. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I’d be willing to speak. I’m not the best speaker in the world, and I get that, but I’m willing to do whatever to help. But I think it’s time to really start thinking about it, because it’s not going to be if we get another storm. It’s when we’re going to get another one. It’s coming.”

Commissioner J.P. Dutton replied that he agrees with Shaffer.

“In regards to flooding, I think you brought it up before. But we’ve talked a lot about this, and you know better than anyone, in terms of there isn’t a lot of funds out there for things that you try to do preventively,” Dutton said. “But I agree. It’s not if, it’s when, and you bring up a good point about floodplains and about what is in these floodplains. Because when you see these images of things that are now washing through the creeks, that’s a conversation I think that maybe we haven’t had as much recently and probably should. I know we’re going to follow up at some point here with (Belmont County Emergency Management Agency Director) Dave Ivan and get some thoughts of where we stand and where the problem areas are.”

He added that the board and Ivan frequently have those conversations, but in light of the Wheeling flash flooding incident that has claimed seven lives, he believes they need to have a conversation again.

“We’ve tried to do some preventive measures. We did the weather monitoring stations a couple years ago. We have those spread out across the county now, but that doesn’t keep incidents from happening. All that does is try to get information to individuals in those areas quicker to say, ‘Hey, you need to really consider getting out,’ so there’s no loss of life,” Dutton said. “But yeah, I think when it comes to weather events, that’s probably the number one concern in Belmont County.”