Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Hurricane, WV

Hurricane is a city in Putnam County, West Virginia, located roughly equidistant from Charleston and Huntington and part of the Huntington-Ashland metropolitan area.

The city takes its name from Hurricane Creek, which surveyors commissioned by George Washington named after finding trees bent in one direction as if struck by a hurricane; locals pronounce the name "HUR-uh-kin," not like the storm.

A settlement called Hurricane Bridge, built around a large inn where West Virginia Route 34 now crosses the creek, appears on an 1811 Virginia map.

On March 28, 1863, Union troops defeated Confederate cavalry at the Battle of Hurricane Bridge, a skirmish that helped the Union keep control of the James River and Kanawha Turnpike and of the Kanawha Valley for the rest of the Civil War.

The modern town dates to 1873, when a railroad track and small depot were built, Main Street developed, and Hurricane became a trading and residential center for tobacco growers and other area farmers.

Hurricane was incorporated as a town in 1888 and as a city in the 1970s, and it is governed under a mayor-council system.

The 2020 census counted 6,961 residents and 2,764 households in Hurricane.

The city had 2,967 housing units at the 2020 census, and its rapid growth since the 1990s brought new subdivisions, the widening of Route 34 toward Teays Valley, and an expansion of Hurricane High School.

Hurricane's three oldest continuously operating businesses are the Hurricane Breeze weekly newspaper (established 1900), Putnam County Bank (established 1901), and Rappold's Barber Shop (established 1906).

The city's Forrest Burdette Memorial United Methodist Church houses the Harrah Organ, a six-manual hybrid pipe organ with 456 stops inaugurated on September 28, 2003, which anchors an ongoing concert series.