Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401230026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I mean to tell you, you could ice skate from 221 to our house," Michael Hubbard said by phone Saturday. "Our running water is grab a bucket and run to the spring."
The Hubbards, iced-in since Monday night, finally made it out Friday to Moran's Meat and Grocery in Willis as the Blue Ridge Mountains and New River Valley began to thaw.
Hubbard, a 35-year-old machinist, said he and his wife had plenty of supplies and firewood. They also never lost their electricity. Still, it was no picnic.
"It was rough back here," he said. "People in Floyd [about 20 miles to the southeast] had no idea what it was like up here. The difference between here and Floyd was like Buffalo, New York, to Orlando, Florida."
In Christiansburg, the crowds were six deep at the Wal-Mart cash registers as the sunny day, with a light wind and temperatures in the upper 30s, seemed perfect for shopping. Across U.S. 460, the New River Valley Mall was swarming with cars, in a scene more reminiscent of mid-December than late January.
In Pearisburg, manager Jerry Roach saw business pick up as formerly ice-bound town and country residents came into Wade's Super Market near the New River.
"As they weathered the storm, they pretty much depleted their supplies," Roach said.
While town residents warmed merchants' hearts, lined up at car washes and otherwise resumed routines, some of the people who live in the isolated hills and hollows of Montgomery, Floyd, Pulaski and Giles counties were happy just to leave home for the first time in days.
"Everybody's glad to see this warm weather," said Mary Alley, who runs Alley's Country Store in the Alleghany Springs area of Montgomery. "It's making a difference, as far as people getting out."
Alley spent a couple of nights this past week with her son in Salem because the ice made the steep road to her home in the Newtown section of Shawsville impassable. "We've got a truck, but the truck wouldn't go on that ice," she said.
Amy Maxey, her daughter, lives nearby and kept the store open for customers, some of whom walked in for supplies. But Maxey couldn't stop the pipes from freezing.
"We still have frozen water lines here at the store," Alley said by telephone over the steady ringing of the cash register. "I haven't been able to make my hot dogs that everybody's wanting."
Ray Kass, a Virginia Tech art professor, and his wife, Jerrie Pike, an assistant professor of humanities, finally made it down their 3,000-foot driveway off North Fork Road in the Ellett Valley on Friday afternoon.
Last year, Kass bought a Ford F-250 pickup with four-wheel drive, a towing package, a snowplow and a one-ton frame. But even that behemoth of a vehicle, nicknamed "Butch," was no match for the ice. Both Kass and Pike missed classes during Tech's first week back from winter break.
"We were just running out of food," Kass said Saturday. The couple bought groceries in town and went to Mountaintop Pizza down the road in Ironto to pick up dinner Friday night.
"We've had five weeks of real snapping-turtle winter, where it bites and just won't let go," Kass said. "In the 18 years I've lived here, I've never seen anything like this."
Joe Stewart, a livestock auctioneer, farmer and member of the Montgomery Board of Supervisors, will turn 79 Saturday and called last week's weather "the worst time I believe I ever saw."
He was trying to thaw a water line at his Elliston farm Saturday so he could get water to the livestock. He said the weather had been hard on his mules and cattle.
The livestock on his Riner farm were somewhat better off because the water source there is springs and creeks, Stewart said.
Near the still-closed Blue Ridge Parkway, however, wine enthusiasts couldn't be deterred from visiting the Chateau Morrisette Winery, home of the popular Black Dog red table wine. Reached off Virginia 726, the mountain winery had a small lunch crowd but anticipated a large group coming for dinner at the restaurant, said office manager Sandra Walton. Though the parking lot is still a sheet of ice, the restaurant will be open today for brunch, she said.
Back at Moran's Meat and Grocery in Willis, sales clerk Heather Akers spoke with several customers Friday and Saturday who were out and about for the first time in days.
"They were just glad to get out and see civilization," Akers said.
by CNB