As teams from the West Virginia National Guard respond to flooding in several counties over the weekend, an emergency declaration from Gov. Jim Justice was necessary. There is plenty of work to do.

With the WVNG Joint Operations Center on full activation, in coordination with the state Emergency Management Division, people and resources can get to those in need of help in Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Kanawha and Roane counties. They’ll need it after heavy flooding damaged homes and infrastructure throughout the region.

The West Virginia Emergency Management Division and the West Virginia Division of Highways are responding, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster and local officials and organizations, to help residents.

It is a multi-faceted response, and one with which West Virginians have become all too familiar. But while the DOH will no doubt get to work quickly clearing mudslides and fixing roads and bridges, help for individuals must not be as painfully slow and complicated as it has been after some past disasters. There may be hundreds of damaged homes to assess. Some may be uninhabitable, and many will require residents to at least find temporary shelter while they clean up and rebuild.

But the memory of frustrating flood recovery that took many years longer than should have been necessary is still fresh for too many in West Virginia.

As always, those who are able to help, will. It’s what we do in the Mountain State. But when the help required comes from King Bureaucracy, its arrival in a timely manner is less certain. Surely we’ve learned some lessons over the past seven years or so. This time around, local, county and state officials had better be prepared … and persistent.