Hurricane season is officially underway. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a slightly more active hurricane season compared to average. Now is the time to prepare, and one New River Valley business is doing just that after getting hit hard by Helene.
Jake Mondy, manager at New River Junction, said, “We had the warning; we had the heads up.”
But even with time to prepare, Helene brought more destruction than New River Junction in Blacksburg had ever seen in over four decades of business.
“We’ve had about 2 feet of water in that building before, three times, I think in 40 some years, and one of those two times might have even been less than that. But you know, there was 7 feet of water in there this time, so just the volume definitely changed things,” he added.
Now, they’re taking lessons learned and using them to plan ahead, with a clear idea of where to move things if another storm hits.
“We definitely know where our higher ground is now. We might not have gotten everything high enough last time, but we still do have ground that was high and dry. So we’ve got the equipment to move things, and everything down here is mobile, so that really helps,” Mondy said.
With a slightly more active hurricane season forecasted this year, the Better Business Bureau says now is the time for families and businesses to get ready.
Julie Wheeler, president and CEO of BBB Serving Western Virginia, said, “You want to make sure you have an emergency kit. You want to have water for a couple of days, you want to have some non-perishable foods, power banks so you can keep your phones charged, batteries, flashlights, radios.”
Even if this season doesn’t bring a storm as severe as Helene, Wheeler says Virginians should still be ready for whatever comes their way.
“What happened this past fall was catastrophic and unusual,” she said. “So hopefully we aren’t going to do that this year, but we can all pretty much count on we are going to have some power outages from something. We may have some trees down; we may have some flooding. It’s just a question of how extensive it is.”
Staff at New River Junction are hoping for a long and hot summer to get back on their feet after an off-season of repairs.