Nearly 50 years ago, long before hurricane Helene tore through Central Appalachia, a different storm devastated the coalfields. In April 1977, a part of Appalachia that’s about the size of Connecticut was flooded.
In a rare move, Congress authorized a major rebuilding project, called Section 202. The town of Grundy in Buchanan County was actually moved, in one of the nation’s most epic engineering efforts to prevent flood damage.
A creek runs through the center of where Grundy’s downtown district once stood. Decades ago, there were two movie theaters, shops and restaurants. Today, there’s a law school, and across from that, in a small white building, is a restaurant that sells cheeseburgers and fried chicken sandwiches. The owner, Zack Johnson, grew up in Grundy.
“Every day I come to work here at Raddydacks, my restaurant, and I’m just like, I try to take it in everyday,” Johnson said. “Because it changes every day.”
He means the seasons: the bright reds and oranges in fall, the snow covered trees in winter. Johnson likes to watch a blue heron that fishes in the creek outside the restaurant. “It’s amazing,” he said.
But what’s also changed in his lifetime is the town itself.
“I remember my senior yearbook, the theme was ‘moving mountains.’ It led you to believe there was gonna be this utopia across the river,” Johnson said. “Which turned into a three-story Walmart.”
In 1977, six feet of water flooded the historic downtown district. Three years later, Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to help communities in Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia rebuild.
During the first phase, the Army Corps paid most of Grundy’s building owners and tore down their structures. They built a new commercial district across the river. But the mountainous terrain meant there wasn’t anywhere above the flood plain to build, so the Army Corps decided to bulldoze part of a mountain to create a 17-acre parcel of flat land.
“It was a massive undertaking,” said Brandon Moore, who works with the Army Corps. “I did not work on it. It was before my time.”
As part of the project, Virginia rerouted the road through Grundy, and built a highway on higher ground, which was completed in 2023. Johnson said the road, while faster, uprooted even more of the town.
“And it’s wiped out one of my childhood favorite restaurants, Dotson’s drive in. [That] just broke my heart, Johnson said. “I just thought, ‘why don’t we just move back here and open a restaurant? Because this place needs a restaurant.’”
Johnson and his wife Amanda recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of their restaurant Raddydacks.
Another Grundy business owner, Tass Robertson, said most of the criticism he’s heard about project is how long it’s taken.
“I was two-years-old when the flood hit, and I’m 49 now,” Robertson said. “And you would have expected that it would have moved a little bit quicker than that, but that’s the way that things happen.”
Part of why it’s taken so long is because the Army Corps has to wait for Congress to appropriate each new phase of the project, Moore said.
The redeveloped site looks completely different from the old stone and brick buildings from before. Next to the three-story Walmart is a medical office and a Mexican restaurant.
“You know, I miss some of the older stores that was here,” said Jean Vandyke, who lives just outside of Grundy. “But it’s changed for the better, so I can live with it.”
If you ask almost anyone in Grundy what this town is known for, apart from the relocation of the downtown, they’ll tell you, it’s wrestling. The high school team has won the state tournament 27 times. Robertson, who coaches a local wrestling club, said their winning streak began after the ‘77 flood.
“And what a lot of those guys told me is they didn’t have to go to school for two months. So they practiced! And they got ready,” Robertson said. “And whenever it was time for the state tournament, it was on! The rest of those people didn’t know what was comin’!”
Every year when it’s time for the wrestling team to compete in the tournament, people line up on the side of the road, cheering them on with signs.
“I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” Robertson said. “And mainly, not because of the mountains, not because of the roads, not because of the buildings. Because of the people.”
Buchanan County and the Army Corps are continuing their flood mitigation work that began nearly five decades ago. The next phase of the project is to consolidate the high schools and build a new school on top of a former mountain top removal site.
“We’re in a very big change in this community,” Robertson said.
Homeowners who might be flooded the next time a storm hits this area can apply to the Army Corps for money to help relocate to higher ground, or rebuild their home to be above the floodplain.
