Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993 TAG: 9305130082
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Short
Emergency workers and passers-by pitched in to help cut up the tree with chain saws, while Blacksburg and Virginia Tech police rerouted traffic off of Prices Fork Road at the Woodland Drive intersection through Virginia Tech.
By 5:30 p.m., one lane of westbound traffic was open, but cleanup crews remained on the scene for about two more hours.
"We thought it was thunder," Tammy Graham said of the noise she and others heard when the tree fell and uprooted. Graham, whose father lives nearby, watches the cleanup effort with other neighbors.
Lawrence Miller, who lives on the property where the tree was, said it probably 'was one of the oldest trees in the area.
"It's been estimated at 325 years old," Miller said. "It's a brute."
The tree, which was dead in places, apparently had been weakened by lightning over the years, he said. It appeared to have fallen because of its massive size and softness of the ground, police said.
"It has been showing signs of decline," Miller said, and the tree may have been weakened further by a heavy storm Sunday.
Blacksburg Police Capt. Bill Brown said it was fortunate the tree fell after the Tech academic year.
The intersection is "like a moving parking lot" at 5 p.m. when classes are in session, he said.
by CNB