Parts of West Virginia are facing a prolonged clean-up effort after widespread flooding killed 23, left thousands homeless, and prompted Governor Earl Ray Tomblin to declare a federal disaster. The inundation swamped entire areas of the state, washing out roads, flooding and destroying structures and cutting off power to thousands. More than 1,200 homes were severely damaged or destroyed in the state. In a single county, Roane, 500 homes were lost to the deluge. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is accepting applications from residents in the three hardest hit counties and climatologist Kevin Law said that this is the third-deadliest flooding event on record for the state and the worst since a 1985 flood that killed 38.