Nitro City Hall is closed to the public after an employee tested positive for COVID-19. The facility will be closed to the public Monday and Tuesday. A limited staff will be working in the building, and will provide assistance over the phone.
A COVID-19 outbreak linked to a funeral in Jackson County is prompting two days of testing. At least fourteen people have tested positive. A testing event will be held today at Cedar Lakes Conference Center, and again next week.
Football practice at Mingo Central High School is being put on a hold after the team was exposed to a person identified as a probable COVID-19 case. Officials say the risk of exposure is low, but they’re canceling practice as a precaution.
There are nearly two-hundred new cases of COVID-19 in West Virginia, bumping Kanawha and Mingo counties from yellow to orange on the state’s advisory map. Two more people in Kanawha County, three people in Logan County, have died from the virus. The state’s positive test rate is over three-percent.
West Virginia has been approved for an over 68-million-dollar FEMA grant to provide three-hundred-dollars-a-week in unemployment benefits, and the state will kick in an additional one-hundred-dollars-a-week. Federal benefits were cut in July, so if you’re still unemployed, you will get back pay for the last three weeks, with a lump sum of 12-hundred-dollars.
The Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association has a hurricane-relief team in Texas to rescue more than forty dogs and puppies. The crew is rescuing pets from an overcrowded facility in Livingston, Texas, and is expected to be back in Charleston this afternoon. The dogs will be available for adoption soon.
Several local EMS teams are on the Gulf Coast to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. The Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority is sending seven ambulances, and the Logan Emergency Ambulance Service Authority is sending one ambulance to Gonzalez, Louisiana. They’re part of a FEMA “Ground Ambulance Strike Team”
Firefighters say lightning may have sparked a fire at an abandoned house in Point Pleasant. It took nine different fire departments to put out the blaze on Leon Ferry Lane. No one was hurt.
A Kentucky man is under arrest after police found a body inside his apartment. Officers responded to a drug overdose at the Demsey Housing apartment complex in Warfield, where they discovered the body. Twenty-eight-year-old Christopher Newsome is charged with manslaughter and drug trafficking.
Two men are in serious condition after crashing their ATV in the Fayetteville area. It happened on Waterplant Road. One of the victims was flown to CAMC for treatment. They both suffered broken ribs, broken collar-bones, and head trauma. Police are investigating.