Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506270012
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TIMBERLAKE LENGTH: Long
When the dam went, it took with it a life, a lake and a lot of good intentions.
It left behind devastation for miles.
After a day of rain, the aging Timberlake dam in Campbell County burst Thursday about 10:45 p.m., sending torrents of water into nearby Buffalo Creek. The swollen stream quickly swallowed a bridge a mile away on U.S. 460 at the Bedford County line and knocked stalled cars from the road.
Carter Martin, a 41-year-old volunteer rescuer who lived and grew up by the lake, died trying to reach the submerged cars, not knowing that everyone in them had escaped. Friday morning, people in this tight-knit community awoke to find they no longer had him or the lake for a neighbor.
What once was a green, thriving lake with docks and boats and fish is now a muddy crater, a mile square. The community's main road is severed, divided by a 130-foot chasm where the water tore the dam apart.
"I came home just in time to see the lake disappear," Scott Anderson said. "I drove around and - ' Wow! There's no lake.' It's just a mudhole.
"If anyone asks me now where I live, I'll have to say Timber Creek, because it's not a lake anymore."
George Schrader, vice president of the local homeowners' association, stood beside the earth-and-stone dam Thursday night and watched it blow, sending dozens of boats and canoes through the breach. "It sounded like several freight trains going through the woods," he said.
Before the flood, the association was trying to get funds to upgrade its privately owned dam, which was built in 1926, and to dredge silt from the lake. Now, the association faces a bigger challenge - replacing the dam and lake.
"We'll have to try pursuing some kind of disaster funding," Schrader said. "If we don't, it could really be a long-term thing." The association held an emergency meeting Friday night to discuss other methods of funding, including setting up a board with the power to impose a quasi-tax on lake residents.
Timberlake was established in 1926 as a private resort community with a beach, golf course and log cabins for rent, catering to well-to-do Lynchburg families. During the Depression, the resort went bankrupt and the lakefront property was sold to developers. In recent years, the homeowners' association took control of the lake and residents built a lifestyle around it.
"Our summer went right down the lake when the dam went," B. Falwell said. A planned swimming and boating party planned for today for neighbors with birthdays in June will be changed or canceled.
"The rest of the stuff can be fixed," said Charles Falwell, B. Falwell's husband and a former homeowners' association president. "To lose a resident out on the lake who was out volunteering to help others, that was a shame."
Martin was a full-time Lynchburg fireman who also volunteered with the Brookville-Timberlake Volunteer Fire Department. He was running for the Campbell County School Board and is survived by his wife and baby daughter.
He and several other volunteer rescuers waded into the deep, fast-flowing waters beside the bridge on U.S. 460, trying to save people they thought were trapped in three cars that went over the bridge. The rescuers were tied to a rope that was tethered to a fire engine and were not wearing life vests, according to a member of the Lynchburg Life Saving Crew.
Martin stumbled, went underwater and was trapped. He was pulled from the water and died at a Lynchburg hospital.
Two other rescuers with the Lynchburg Life Saving Crew were thrown from a rescue boat by rough waters coming under the bridge. The men were swept downstream and suffered cuts and bruises. They were hospitalized and later released.
A witness said the cars were trapped in high water on the bridge, and the drivers and passengers all fled the cars, which later were carried off the bridge by the current.
By Friday morning, state police said they were confident all passengers in the vehicles had been accounted for, and they had no reports of any missing people in the area.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB