Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 21, 1993 TAG: 9312210182
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Even before the first flakes started falling around noon, or started sticking to the ground around 2:30 p.m., people in the New River Valley knew. And they knew what to do.
To the hardware stores! they said. For salt, sand, shovels and sleds! Quick, before we're caught unaware!
Unaware like last Wednesday, when people awoke to find white on their lawns, despite a forecast for rain. But that was only a dusting, compared to what the radios started warning of Monday morning.
The National Weather Service said 3 to 8 inches; 10 if it's 1, the radios blared. By the time the customers arrived, they hearkened to sidewalk forecasts of a full foot.
Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for the counties of Carroll, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski, Wythe, Bland, Bath, Highland and Alleghany. By Monday evening, additional warnings were issued for Roanoke, Craig, Rockbridge and Botetourt.
By 10 p.m. Monday, an average of 3 inches had fallen in the Roanoke and New River valleys and approximately 6 inches in higher elevations. Police and sheriff's departments throughout the area reported many minor accidents caused by hazardous road conditions.
Virginia Department of Transportation workers said they had full crews out plowing and applying salt to primary roads, and road crews were scheduled to work on secondary roads whenever the snow stopped falling.
The Department of Transportation placed most area roads under a condition 3 - signifying that drivers should use snow tires or chains.
Monday afternoon, some residents were focusing on removing snow, not driving through it.
"I couldn't care less if I didn't see another snowflake," said Deann Huffman, getting advice on how to put together the shovel she was about to purchase at Lowe's in Christiansburg. The bright orange Department of Transportation trucks filed up the road from their building behind the hardware store. Flakes that were supposed to start out as sleet were already sticking to the ground.
But she'd be fine, Huffman said. It's her husband who harbors the animosity. The owner of a car dealership in Roanoke, he wrecked a car on the trip between Christiansburg and the big city two years ago during an ice storm.
"As long as I don't have to go out in it," she said, and walked to the cashier.
Jennifer Camevari was loading up, too. She was heading back to Brendle's, where the snow was bad news because many would-be customers can't get out to buy Christmas gifts. But at least they'd have clean sidewalks to the store, she said, driving off with salt in the trunk and a shovel in the back seat.
Lucky she came early.
Outside, employee Derek Smith battled breaking bags of "ice-melt," transferring the plastic bags from one pallet to another that wouldn't get wet. If the "ice-melt" did, well, it would melt.
"We're going to run out of shovels, probably, before everybody gets here," he said.
Workers stacked portable heating units at the end of the aisles.
Monday was busy all day, Smith said, and would be even more so after businesses closed. "We don't have sleds or chains, or it'd be even more packed."
Out in Radford, that was not a problem. At Ace Hardware, cashier Karen Peterson said people had been coming in all day buying salt and shovels. She'd sold about 40 sleds, mostly the plastic variety; those with metal runners already had sold out.
"I'm taking a sled for myself," she said.
In Dublin, Lowe's manager Danny McGlothlin watched the cars outside slow to about 25 mph, half their normal speed. About an inch had fallen by 5 p.m. McGlothlin, too, was about to sell out of shovels.
"They pretty much clear us out" after the first snowfall every year, he said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to get some more in."
"There's some excitement about it," he said. "Plenty of talk" - some good, some bad.
Over at the Express Shop, a service station and convenience store, drivers were coming in by the dozens to fill up on gas.
"Every time they say there's going to be a big snow, they mob the pumps," owner Chris Hampton said. "They'll be buying milk and bread and groceries as soon as the real snow hits."
Up in Floyd County, folks weren't rushing the doors of C.W. Harman & Son Farm Center, but they were watching the gray skies.
"Everybody just hopes that it's not as bad as it was last week," said employee Tommy Sower. The dusting of snow in Montgomery County dropped six inches or more higher up in parts of Floyd, knocking out power to about 500 people and causing a handful of accidents between Floyd and Willis.
That caught people off guard, Sowers said, but not today.
"Most people - they're used to it. . . . Everybody's getting ready for it."
by CNB