MONTGOMERY CO., Va. – There are not a lot of folks in Montgomery County who live by the New River, but those who do were hit hard like they’ve never been hit before by all of the floods caused by Helene.
Tucked far back in Montgomery County sits a campground and tubing business, New River Junction. When Helene tore through the area and brought massive flooding, it was practically destroyed.
“The water got as high as the bottom of the gutter there, so pretty much everything yellow you couldn’t really see,” said Jake Mondy, owner of New River Junction. Butted to “We had sheds back [here] and storage, and some outdoor showers and stuff and it damaged those beyond repair.”
I met with him at New River Junction and he took me around to see some of the damage.
“We were able to get all of our tubes out of there, some of them up where we got them to higher ground wasn’t quite high enough, so we did lose some inventory,” said Mondy. “All of our boats normally sit in there and during a flood we close the gates, it’s no big deal, but the water got so high they floated out of the tube corral.
”He then took me to his childhood home by the river. He said even though it was built to withstand floods, it did nothing to help against this.
“We’ve seen this in this house before, but you know when you put it to scale and percentage-wise, the difference between here and here, and how it impacts everything downstream and especially a dwelling is quite significant,” said Mondy. “Whenever we get flooded, even on a smaller scale, the mud is just crazy. This has been cleaned a little bit too and, as you can see right there, this is in the middle of your living room.”
He said they’re just trying to stay positive and keep working to get back to where they were.
“You work all year, basically every day, and you get to the end of the year and you’re supposed to be able to breathe and here we are,” said Mondy. “But, hopefully, on the other side of that, we’ll come back a little better and hopefully be a little bit more prepared if this were to ever happen again.”
He said they hope they can get this cleaned up and be open in April.