In Allegany County, flood recovery pushes forward a year later

Historic flooding undercut the foundation of Westernport’s town library a year ago and buried its books in mud. Two blocks away, the town’s recovery is pressing ahead.

A building that was once home to a beloved local medical clinic is the temporary home of the Westernport branch of the Allegany County library, offering a few thousand books and a seed bank to local residents.

Library staff turned the entrance and waiting area of the former clinic into a reading room. On either side, four rooms that were once examination rooms are now nooks filled with books including two comfortable rooms for children.

Shelving — institutional metal and some heavy-duty oak — were reclaimed from the nearby Luke Paper Mill as it closed.

“We’re repurposing a building that has a lot of sentimental value for the community,” said Lisa McKenney, director of the Allegany County Library System.

While the old library held more than 10,000 books, there are about 3,000 titles in the temporary space. Staff regularly rotate the library’s offerings.

Despite the challenges, the library is open three days a week and even draws users from Keyser, West Virginia, less than 10 miles away.

McKenney and her team are thinking about the future.

“We have a dream of a new library outside the floodplain,” she said. “One that would be sustainable for future generations.”

Recovery presses ahead here, a year after a slow-moving storm dumped 3.5 – 5.5 inches of rain in areas of western Allegany County on May 13, 2025.

“The beautiful thing is that there was a Plan A. There was no Plan B, and I like that,” said Gov. Wes Moore (D), who toured the area Friday. “What it means is Plan A is going to happen.”

A year ago, Georges Creek reached major flood stage. The surge — more than 14 feet of water — exceeded a September 1996 flood.

There were no reported injuries or fatalities in last year’s flooding, but it damaged businesses and as many as 300 homes. Roads, bridges, utilities and government buildings between Frostburg, Midland, Lonaconing and Westernport were also damaged.

Moore, who toured the area immediately after the flooding, has returned several times since.

On Friday, Moore started his latest tour in Frostburg and worked south to Westernport, marking the anniversary of the flood and the recovery of communities tied to the state’s small coal mining industry.

The area is slated to receive $12 million in state aid — a fraction of the $33.7 million in damages caused by the flood. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has repeatedly rejected Moore administration requests for federal aid, leaving state and local officials on their own.

Included in the state aid is $5.5 million for utility and infrastructure repair and replacement. Another $1 million is earmarked for a new library.

“There were about 10,000 books that are just ruined,” Moore said of his visit to the library last May. “Honestly … if you did not tell me that was a library, I would not have known that. You walk through it now, it is a library.”

Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-6th), who joined Moore on Friday’s tour, said she is working to add another $1 million in federal grant money to the library project. In the meantime, she said, she’s been rounding up books from the Library of Congress to help replace what was lost.

McClain Delaney also donated a copy of “Goodnight Moon.” She said she was moved to make the donation — and a similar one to Westernport Elementary — after finding a copy of the children’s book in the post-flood mud and muck.

“I read that story to my own daughters … and to me it was kind of the foundation of parenting, but also of love and security,” she told a gathering at the volunteer fire station. “So, the road back is not easy, and it’s been difficult days, but we saw the best in you all.”

The flood pushed tons of mud into Westernport’s Main Street, swamping businesses and destabilizing the town’s public library.

“It washed away the substrata,” said Renee Mason, a library spokesperson. “We have no idea how bad it is so we’re not sure we would want to rebuild there.”

The town showed up in the aftermath with shovels to dig out Main Street. While the mud is gone, some scars remain.

The library, which sits across the street from the Potomac Volunteer Fire Co., remains boarded up. The search and rescue X’s marked on the building remain visible to passersby.

Not far from the library, the town’s elementary school that serves about 200 children, is also getting back to normal.

The flash flood cut off Westernport Elementary. Rescue crews from Maryland and West Virginia evacuated students and staff by boat.

“It took boats to save them,” said Moore, who walked the halls Friday of a rebuilding school, high-fiving students along the way.

Moore remarked at the effort it took to restore a school to a place where he could walk the halls and “hear the sounds of children laughing.”

When children returned to classes at Westernport Elementary last fall, after finishing out the previous school year in Frostburg State University space, the first floor was still so damaged that all classes were moved to the second floor.

The cafeteria was a complete loss. A nearby school prepares meals and brings them to Westernport Elementary, where students eat in a makeshift lunch room set up in the gym. Behind the curtains on the stage are temporary offices.

Westernport Mayor Judy Hamilton said it was important to get the children back into the building after last year’s relocation to Frostburg State.

“We wanted to get the kids back into as much normalcy as we could,” Hamilton said. “Shipping them up the creek to another school wasn’t going to do that. So the school board and the school worked so hard to make sure that, come September, these kids were back in their home school.”

The school, which is more than 100 years old, sits along the North Branch Potomac River.

It opened its doors in 1924 as Bruce High School. Thirty-four years later those students moved to a new high school and the building was reborn as Westernport Elementary.

It has flooded twice since then, once in 1996 and again in May 2025, a flood that some worried would finally close the school.

Hamilton, who is finishing her career in public office this year, credited Moore and McClain Delaney with helping return a sense of normalcy to the lives of the schoolchildren.

“I think the kids were successful because of the help we got from these guys,” Hamilton said. “The federal government left us hanging. That’s the bottom line.”