Across roughly six hours on July 21, severe summer storms dropped nearly a month’s worth of precipitation over north-central West Virginia. The resulting flash floods killed at least two people and damaged or destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses, with the hardest-hit areas concentrated in Upshur and Lewis Counties.

In these rural counties, fewer than 1 percent of residential structures are covered by a National Flood Insurance Program policy, and even in the regulatory floodplain, fewer than 10 percent of structures are covered. As such, many of the affected households will likely have to pay for recovery out of pocket.

In this article, we explore how state, local, and community partners can address the unique challenges associated with rural disasters, compared with those in more-urban areas.

1. In a low-attention disaster, state and local leaders must create visibility by communicating needs

After disasters, the scope and duration of media coverage shape the environment for response and long-term recovery. Media attention drives public interest, charitable giving, and volunteerism and can help affected households and businesses make more-informed decisions. Coverage can also influence policymaking by spotlighting the disaster’s scope and the survivors’ needs.

Generally, rural disasters, especially smaller-scale events, receive less attention in the regional and national media. Using the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT), we find that the West Virginia floods received less media coverage than all the other disasters we included in our sample, including flooding in rural parts of Vermont in 2024, and larger, urban events, such as the tornado that affected St. Louis, Missouri, in 2025.

With little media coverage, local and state governments and other supporting organizations will need to communicate information about the flooding, response efforts, and unmet needs themselves, messages that media coverage would otherwise help drive.

2. State and local support will have to bridge the gap before federal assistance arrives

When lower-attention disasters strike rural communities such as Lewis and Upshur Counties, nonfederal resources are necessary to address short-term needs.

Read the full article about West Virginia flash flood recovery by Andrew Rumbach, Will Curran-Groome, and Sophie McCauley at Urban Institute.