Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 17, 1995 TAG: 9501180030
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEMBROKE LENGTH: Medium
"This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Charles Sexton, whose trailer, one of about a dozen at the Riverside trailer park near Narrows, was washed off its foundation and carried about a 100 yards away.
"I'm not going to put it back there no more. I'm going to find me some higher ground," said Sexton, who has lived at the trailer park for seven years and seen floods before.
Rescuers had to use a boat to bring one family to safety at the trailer park, officials said.
"Everything we got in the campground ... just about everything is gone," said 75-year-old Lethia Duncan, who operates a campground in Newport near the river with her husband, Edgar, 86. Their home also was flooded, and they planned to stay in a camper lent them by friends.
"I feel sad, but life goes on," she said. "At least we're both still walking around."
Nowhere in the county were there reports of injuries, and people throughout the New River Valley were counting their blessings even as they dried out and cleaned up Monday. In Radford, officials canceled school but had brought the city water service back on line after a 14-hour shut-down.
All along the river, the image was the same Monday. The water that in some places had spread 50 yards or more beyond its banks was receding, but still rushing by at a frantic rate, carrying with it everything from small flotsam to huge trees. By 5 p.m. Monday, the water had dropped 7 feet, said Steve Davis, Giles County emergency services coordinator.
Appalachian Power Co. officials said they were slowly closing the gates at the dam at Claytor Lake, upstream of the valley. They expected to have the gates closed by today, said Don Johnson, a company spokesman.
The lake, which had an elevation last week of 1,843 feet, 3 feet below normal, had risen about 4 feet to within inches of the top of the dam Sunday, forcing the power company to open the dam's gates.
The flow of water at Allisonia, where the river enters Claytor Lake, was 2,669 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Friday. It was 112,558 cubic feet per second at 3 p.m. Sunday.
"We didn't experience the terrible situations like we could have," said a Giles County Sheriff's Office dispatcher. "We were very fortunate."
Veteran flood-watchers said they were surprised by how fast the water rose and by the extent of the flooding.
"It came up real quick, quicker than I've ever seen it come up," said Harvey Niday, who has earned a reputation in Giles County for accurately predicting how bad a flood will be based on the water level in Radford, 37 miles upstream.
He said he had about a quarter-inch of silt in his trailer near Pembroke. But he was able to smile about it Monday.
"What the hell else would you do?" he said, adding that this was the worst flooding he had seen since 1940, when the river washed away two-story houses.
He planned to invite his neighbors, many of whom had been hit harder than he had been, over for sandwiches Monday.
"If you live on the river, you expect this," he said. "Its part of the price."
Sexton said residents heard no warning. In previous floods, he said, sheriff's deputies "came down and told us, 'The water's going to get real high. Get what you can and get out.'"
In Narrows, the Virginia 61 bridge was closed from 11 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday, and the town's sewage treatment plant and Main Street were shut down for several hours. Businesses in town saw flooded basements, town officials said.
In Rich Creek, rescuers had to haul away campers ahead of the rising water.
"It ain't quite sunk in yet. Maybe it'll hit me hard later on," Sexton said. "Now I know how those people out in California feel."
by CNB