1. By Michael Kunzelman
and Rebecca Santana
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. — A prom-
inent Black Lives Matter activ-
ist, three journalists and more
than 120 other people were
taken into custody in Louisiana
over the weekend, authorities
said Sunday, in connection with
protests over the fatal shooting
of an African-American man by
two white police officers in
Baton Rouge.
Spokeswoman Casey Ray-
born Hicks of the East Baton
Rouge Sheriff’s Office told The
Associated Press that nearly
100 people were taken to the
parish jail over protests that
began late Saturday. Most of
those arrested were from Lou-
isiana and faced a single charge
of obstructing a highway.
Police
release
activist
JULY 11, 2016 CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
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Gazette-Mail
Charleston
By Ryan Quinn
Staff writer
Kanawha County Schools is
auctioning off two shuttered
schools on Charleston’s West
Side Wednesday.
Alan Cummings, the school
system’s purchasing director,
said the separate auctions will
take place at the schools’ ad-
dresses: Watts Elementary, at
230 Costello St., Charleston,
25302, will be auctioned at 10
a.m., and J.E. Robins Elemen-
tary, at 915 Beech Avenue,
Charleston, 25302, will be auc-
tioned at 11:30 a.m.
The schools, both about 80
years old, closed at the end of
the 2013-14 school year, and
their students were transferred
to the new Edgewood Elemen-
tary. Both have also been sub-
jected to vandalism and com-
plaints from neighbors, though
the school system only boarded
them up around the end of
May of this year.
“The goal is to just move the
buildings as quickly as possible,
to benefit the community,” Cum-
mings told a reporter Friday.
West
Side
schools
for sale
Kanawha County to
auction J.E. Robins,
Watts on Wednesday
SEE auction, 11A
SEE Protester, 11A
SAM OWENS | Gazette-Mail
A water pipe is snaked across a railroad bridge that runs across the Gauley River, Wednesday, as maintenance crews worked to bring water back to all residents in
Gauley Bridge. There are residents in town who have not had water since June 23, when severe flooding hit the area and washed water pipes away.
By Daniel Desrochers
Staff writer
Since she last had running water,
Nancy Taylor, of Gauley Bridge,
has driven around two miles to an
unmarked pipe spilling water on the
side of the road five times.
That’s where the retired school
teacher has filled the two five-gallon
jugs, or — once the five-gallon jugs
got too heavy — the eleven single
gallon jugs, that have been her main
source of fresh water for the past 16
days.
“I was determined not to take water
from the people whose houses are
messed up,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s home, which sits on the
bank of the New River, wasn’t dam-
aged in the floods. Her basement
flooded in the storm, but only the
yearbooks she kept from her years as
an art teacher were damaged.
“I don’t have any problems,” Taylor
said. “I just have an inconvenience.”
Taylor’s home was fine, but the
water infrastructure in town wasn’t.
The flood washed away pipes and
damaged the water treatment plant.
The Kanawha Falls Public Service
District, the utility service that pro-
vides water to Gauley Bridge, has
been able to restore service to the
main part of town. But Taylor, 11
families and the four businesses that
are separated from the rest of town
by the Gauley River still don’t have
running water two weeks after the
floods.
Kanawha Falls PSD is one of more
than 20 water utility services through-
out the state affected by the severe
flooding that swept through southern
West Virginia two weeks ago.
Many of them are public service
districts, already cash-strapped from a
shrinking customer base from the
decline in the coal industry.
“The infrastructure that was put in
place, and the loans that were taken
out to put in the infrastructure, don’t
go away because the customer base is
decreasing,” said Amy Swann, execu-
tive director of the West Virginia Rural
Water Association.
Floods drain water providers
Cash-strapped public service districts face strain after infrastructure battered
SEE Water, 11A
By Erin Beck
Staff writer
For about two years as a
teenager, Angie Conn, of Buf-
falo, was trapped by physical
force.
For about eight years, she
was trapped by the darkness
that followed.
Conn, a survivor of human
trafficking, couldn’t see a fu-
ture in front of her. When she
looked in the mirror, she
couldn’t see her own self-
worth. As a teenager, she
never thought she’d live past
age 20.
Conn’s spiral into darkness
started at age 15, when she
was a victim of date rape.
She felt isolated and ashamed,
and, in search of numbness,
she began to self-medicate
with alcohol. She wondered
if the experiences defined her
value as a person.
“Shame is a complex feel-
ing to be immersed in, be-
cause it’s a prison unto itself,”
she said. “You act out, and
you try to relieve some of that
darkness that continues every
morning to kind of creep
back in.”
After a second sexual as-
sault, her fight-or-flight re-
sponse kicked in, and she
chose to escape.
Human trafficking survivor to hike for awareness
CHRIS DORST | Gazette-Mail
Angie Conn, a survivor of human trafficking, trains for the Free-
dom Challenge. Conn, of Buffalo, will hike on Snow King Moun-
tain in Wyoming in an effort to raise awareness of human traf-
ficking, a modern form of slavery.
SEE Survivor, 11A
Flood coverage inside
i Disaster recovery center opens in Monroe
County / 2A
i Student helps flood victims in southern
West Virginia / 2A
i National Guard to host day camp
programs for flood-affected families / 6A
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