Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 10, 1993 TAG: 9306100126
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEN DAVIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When the storm hit, trees bent and broke under the force of 100-mph winds. Golf ball-sized hailstones dented cars.
And by the time it was over, the New River Valley was one big mess.
Just ask Terrell Sheppard. He's one of the people in charge of cleaning it all up.
"We started the crews Friday evening right after the storm was over and have been working at it ever since," Sheppard said. "We've got everybody in on this job."
Sheppard, who is the property maintenance superintendent for the Town of Blacksburg, said the worst storm of the season is also one of the worst he has seen in his 35 years of service with the town.
Not even the gales brought on by Hurricane Hugo in the fall of 1989 left Blacksburg with as much destruction as Friday's storm, Sheppard said.
"As far as breaking down and uprooting trees, we've had more damage out of this storm than anything I've ever seen," he said.
Despite the long hours employees with the town's Public Works Departments have put in since Friday, workers say the job is just beginning.
All over town, it is the same story.
Streets are now lined with brush, limbs and even the trunks of huge trees cleared from almost every street, yard and driveway in town.
The shattered and uprooted trees even hit a few houses.
Bo Cho, an electrical engineering professor at Virginia Tech, had just finished replacing a light bulb when he heard the crash of two 200-year-old oak trees coming through the roof of the house he shares with his wife and two sons on the corner of Floyd and Ridgeway streets in Blacksburg.
"The insurance adjuster said this is one of the worst cases around," Cho said.
The damage was estimated at $50,000, he said.
And Cho is not alone.
Insurance agents from across the New River Valley have reported record numbers of claims and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage due to the storm.
State Farm Insurance Agent Glen Cochran said his Christiansburg office has received so many claims, State Farm had to bring in a disaster team from out-of-state to assist with the policy-holders.
"We've been taking a lot of reports for trees being blown onto cars and houses, metal houses and roofs being blown off - it's been bad," he said.
Cochran said he has received about 45 homeowner and automotive claims totaling $40,000.
It was no different in Blacksburg.
"They started calling me Friday afternoon," said Norma Hill, a claims adjuster for John Brown Insurance. "We worked all weekend, and Monday was even worse. We had six phone lines ringing all day long."
For the cleanup crews, their day begins at 7:30 a.m.
With thoughts of the eight-hour day and 90-degree temperatures lying ahead, the workers load up their backhoes and dump trucks for the job of clearing the mounds of trees and brush lying in front of most homes throughout the New River Valley.
With about 15 trucks, four backhoes and two loaders working all over Blacksburg, Sheppard said it has taken crews an average of 130 to 150 truckloads a day to even begin clearing the brush and debris off of the streets.
"We've had everything from loads of brush to huge trees lying all over the streets," said Jerry Songer, a 15-year veteran of the Public Works Department.
Songer, his face and arms coated with sweat and sawdust from cutting up trees and brush with a chain saw, gave an exasperated laugh as he thought about the several hours and 25 loads it took just to clear the brush off a street in the south end of town.
"It's really been a job," Songer said.
Sheppard agreed.
"It's been a lot of brush, I tell you," he said looking at a house-sized mound of mulch, brush and other storm debris at the Montgomery County landfill. "I'm hoping we can put a dent in all this by the end of the week . . . if we don't get another storm by then."
by CNB