Serious
damage was done to the Cheat Lake Marina in Monongalia County as a result of
large chunks of ice floating down the river. Every single dock that was attached
to that marina is now debris in the Cheat River, much floating on into the
Monongahela River.
According
to witnesses, the docks began to take damage around 11 AM Wednesday morning, and
many described the noise as an intense grinding sound.
"As
I was working, I looked down and saw ice coming down the mouth of the lake,"
said Rodney Kovach, the principle owner of Key Contracting in Cheat Lake. "It
was something like I've never seen before. The whole lake was full of ice and
just took out all the docks and everything."
Another
man who lives in the Cheat Lake area said that he was fortunate that his docks
were not damaged by the gushing chunks of ice that continued to float down the
river Wednesday afternoon.
"I
witnessed all the edge water marina and the lakeside docks that were just put in
last summer coming down the lake in a big sheet of ice," said Dr. Bill Rose, a
resident of Cheat Lake. "So as you can see it's totally just devastation of all
the marinas."
There
were people lined up and down the street from the marina past Ice's Ferry
Bridge. Simply gazing at the destruction. If you have pictures or videos, you
can e-mail them to us at news@wdtv.com