Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995                   TAG: 9501090069
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ICE BLAMED AS DAIRY FARMER DIES IN WRECK

Robert Lewis Jamison, 32, was a few miles from his Martinsville home when his car hit an icy patch on Virginia 890 in Franklin County at 11:06 p.m. Friday. As he rounded a curve, his car veered off the left side of the road and struck a tree, a state police report said.

``He never would have been out if he wasn't checking on his sister,'' said Jamison family friend Frances Bowling.

Jamison died at the scene. His passenger, Timmy Coleman of Martinsville, was in intensive care Saturday in Winston-Salem Baptist Hospital.

Saturday there were more tales of cars and people slipping and sliding in the few remaining slick spots, but no major accidents, authorities said.

That contributed to the feeling that Friday's freezing rain was ``nothing'' compared with 31/2 inches of freezing rain in last year's worst arctic blast.

But National Weather Service meteorologist Sam Simpson said that on a scale of 1 to 5, Roanoke's first ice storm of 1995 rated a 3.

``We got about nine-tenths of an inch of precipitation with it, and that's quite a bit for freezing rain,'' Simpson said. ``If it had been snow, that would've been about 9 inches.''

What was different from last year was the impact.

Last year, ice storms toppled trees and limbs, which pulled down power lines as they fell, causing major headaches for Appalachian Power Co. But Friday's storm produced only a handful of scattered, temporary outages, said Apco spokeswoman Victoria Ratcliff.

Roanoke may have only dodged the bullet. There's more to come.

Another storm is forecast for tonight, but this time it will be snow, Simpson said.

Saturday, people were in hardware stores across the city stocking up. They were buying kerosene heaters, shovels, sleds, de-icers and ice scrapers.

``People know this is only the beginning of it, not the end,'' said Bill Wood, the manager of Wood's Ace Hardware store.

``A lot of people were buying the things they realized they didn't have [Friday], so they can put them away for next time,'' Wood said.

Keywords:
FATALITY