Widespread Flooding Drives West Virginia Schools to Remote Learning Despite Inadequate Internet Access for Students

 

Widespread flooding due to heavy rains over the weekend during what is typically West Virginia's wet season of snow and rain, led to school building closures and remote learning mandates on Monday.

According to WVPolicy.org, as of 2018 West Virginia had a 16% poverty rate overall and a 24% child poverty rate. This is in comparison to a pre-pandemic poverty rate of 12% overall for the U.S. and puts West Virginia at the fifth-highest poverty rate of all U.S. states and territories. Indexmundi.com lists McDowell as the most impoverished county in West Virginia with an overall poverty rate of 35% and several counties not far behind with over 25% poverty rates.  Households in poverty are hit harder by and have a more difficult time recovering from natural disasters.  Low socioeconomic status is also a barrier to internet access, particularly as many companies require credit checks or hefty deposits. 

West Virginia's wild mountainous terrain is not only prone to natural disasters from flooding and severe cold, as well as violent storms that can arise due to rapid sudden temperature and weather changes, but it is also inhospitable to high speed internet equipment. Some phone lines which transport DSL have not been updated for decades. Running high speed cable internet would be difficult and unprofitable through rough mountainous terrain to remote rural areas. When I worked in McDowell County, I was made privy to a dry and accurate joke that one could travel for 2 hours and only go 12 miles. This is due to narrow, winding mountain roads where around many curves one can reach out the driver's side window and slap the rear bumper of the car. 

West Virginia has some bustling cities, but it's moreso remote towns separated by gorgeous landscapes of mountains and rivers such as the New River and Gauley.  Although Broadband WV and Connect WV have been political platforms since at least the early 2010s, internet service providers have said the cost would be infeasible to run high speed cable or even update existing phone lines that enable DSL between houses and towns in remote areas given West Virginia's unwelcoming terrain.  

Frequent outages have also affected households that do have access during these post-pandemic remote learning days, due to aging and insufficient existing internet infrastructure. 

This leaves many students, teachers, and families without internet access to complete work or even keep up with the news. Attempting to use Mom's phone as a hotspot just doesn't seem to cut it for classroom videoconferences where even mobile phone service is often spotty with 1992esque dial-up speeds.  According to broadbandsearch.net, 

"In West Virginia, only 88.5% has DSL access; 70.6% has cable Internet, 97.2% has wireless Internet and a mere 1.9% of the Mountain State has fiber Internet, the lowest rate in the nation. In addition, only 15.3% has the choice of 3 or more Internet service providers, giving users little choice in whom they go with."

Meanwhile, who even has time to be online as we are bailing out our basements in flood prone areas or attempting to ford roadways to and from work?  West Virginians all over the state, including me, remain in our hearts and prayers. 

Typed on a Nokia C2 with consistently interrupted, sluggish data in Dunbar, WV. All photos & videos captured today by Jessica L. Campbell