Notes for: Paul Edward Cumpston
Smithburg, West Virginia, Flood of 1950, as witnessed by Phil Cooper
Recounted by him in a letter to the Doddridge County Historical Society on the occasion of the Flood's 50th anniversary in June 2000.
(with minor editing for readability)
Saturday, June 24, 1950 was a normal Smithburg hot summer day. In the evening it started to rain hard. At the age of 18, rain was a minor thing, so I proceeded to the drive-in movie. I got back home at 10 p.m. and went to bed.
My mother was always the last of the family to go to bed. At 11 p.m., she woke me and said that the water in Middle Island Creek was rising rapidly, and I'd better move the truck in front of the house facing Middle Island Creek. My brother Roger and I attempted to move the truck, but when we tried to cross the bridge across Middle Island Creek, the truck flooded out and stalled.
At that point, we all went to bed thinking the creek would crest at another foot or two and be down by morning.
At about midnight, we were awakened again with the realization that water was in the bottom floor of our two-story house. This had never happened before. So we went upstairs, but the water was rising so fast that in a short period of time, we were trapped.
The force of the water tore off the rear single-story section of our house and forced the family into the attic of the two-story section.
We realized that the house would break loose from the foundation and begin floating downstream once the chimneys broke loose. This was only a matter of time, as we heard the bricks cracking. And once the house started moving, it began to turn over on its side.
My father, my brother Roger, and I kicked the gable end out of the house, and the family climbed onto what was the front of the house, as it started to float down Middle Island Creek.
As we passed by the big elm tree by the Harley Moore residence, we talked about trying to swim over to a stalled train on the B & O railroad track adjacent to the tunnel. Dad said no, we can't do that, because Mother and my sisters couldn't swim. So we all stuck together on the house, not realizing what our destiny would be.
As the house continued downstream, we could see the large body of water during flashes of lightning, and we could occasionally hear people yelling and screaming.
The house impacted a B & O railroad bridge concrete buttress at a rapid rate of speed, and my complete family was thrown into the water as the house completely destructed in seconds.
There were also many other houses destroyed on the bridge buttress.
I was thrown into the water amid debris and fought desperately just to surface to stay afloat. After taking in water and thinking that I was gone, I caught onto part of an old sofa and continued downstream. I managed to grab onto the cable bridge at the mouth of Jockey Camp and gradually pulled myself up onto the boards and debris of the bridge.
As daylight broke the next morning, I could get a visual of the debris on the cable bridge, and I eventually saw people on the bank alongside Highway 50.
Sometime later, I handwalked the cable bridge to the Jockey Camp side, and someone kept yelling for me to try and swim, because there was danger of the cable bridge being destroyed by debris from the houses caught against the B & O railroad bridge.
I jumped into the water and swam toward Jockey Camp, but the current was still strong and carried me downstream, until I could finally swim back to Paul Cumpston's farm. As I approached the bank, Paul pulled me out. I was shaking from hypothermia. Paul took me to his house, gave me a shot of whiskey, and told me to go to bed and get some rest.
When I awoke at about 5 p.m., the water was almost down to normal, and we decided to drive to Smithburg. As we drove through the cut on Highway 50 and got a view of Smithburg, it looked devastated. Most of the houses along Middle Island Creek were gone.