West Virginia Department of Transportation

West Virginia… if you’re one for whom this conjures up images of a gap-​toothed, jug-​wielding hillbilly or worse yet, the strains of dueling banjos while scenes from Deliverance dance in your head… this review is for you.
I’ve worked with people from West Virginia over my years of consulting, and I’ve never found kinder, more helpful, more generous and down-​to-​earth souls anywhere else. This again became very evident when I was stuck on I-​77 in the blizzard of Dec 18/​19, 2009.
The simple fact is that after I’d spent 18 hours in my car, stuck on a bridge, along with a couple thousand others, a WVDOT crew who’d been working for about 18 straight hours came to the rescue. And the crew leader had time to carry-​on simple but informative conversation with me and the wife, partly, I suspect, to help ease our anxiety.
Throw in the 4 guys who’d walked from a mile behind me all the way to where the crew was pulling people out of the snow to help push cars free (so they could get pulled out sooner) and the über-​friendly people in Beckley once we got free and decided to just stay the next day/​night to wait out the remainder of the storm and you should get the picture.
I hope you’ll rethink that stale WV stereotype the next time you’re in this Wild and Wonderful state.
To those West Virginians with which I’ve had the pleasure of acquaintance, thanks.