Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 29, 1995 TAG: 9506290101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA LENGTH: Medium
The valleys south of town along U.S. 501 took a beating on Wednesday.
Scenes of destruction were everywhere as the road sliced south toward Glasgow. Lowry Run, Bells Cove Creek and many other streams - some of them spontaneously created by the torrential rains - thundered down Rocky Row and Punch Bowl mountains and across the road on their way to the Maury River.
Wednesday afternoon, the highway was mud-slicked and covered with boulders, stumps and uprooted pines. In places, chunks of road - several car-lengths long - had fallen.
A mudslide covered 50 yards of highway before bulldozers scraped open one lane. Just down the road, two cracked-up cars stood abandoned. One had rear-ended the other.
Farther south, someone had put up a makeshift barricade: a battered piece of plywood propped up by two old red dinette chairs. A soggy red towel was thrown over the top of the plywood.
Helicopters flew in and out, evacuating people and offering help to families that wanted to stay.
Bill Crawford, who lives on a hill south of Buena Vista, said some neighbors were spending the night in their garage rather than evacuate. ``Their house was almost wiped out - a lot of water damage, trees pushed against it. The road's gone.''
For a time, many residents along 501 found themselves pinned in, unable to get through to Glasgow or Buena Vista.
Just south of Buena Vista, State Trooper K.S. Holt was given the task of stopping people from driving across the bridge at Lowry Run. The floodwaters had smashed away a section, leaving just one lane.
The waters were continuing to undercut the bridge, and Holt had been instructed to close it off and not allow anyone through except highway or utility workers. A half-dozen or so private vehicles lined up on either side of the bridge, and people desperate to get home tried to beg and cajole the trooper into letting them across.
Holt, who had been called in from Martinsville, found himself in a tense situation.
``Somebody's got to do something. He can't lock us all up,'' one man said out of earshot of the trooper.
``Well you get it started,'' a woman urged him on.
Nothing came of that, but some of the stranded motorists started cursing Holt. One woman claimed she had friends on the other side who didn't have any food or water. She accused Holt of not caring, and used locker-room language to describe her thoughts on police officers in general.
Holt kept his cool, explaining things politely but firmly. The engineers were afraid the bridge could go anytime. Orders were orders, and he couldn't make exceptions.
``I got bosses just like y'all do,'' Holt said. ``If I let one person across here and it falls, they're going to come looking for me.''
Finally, highway engineers gave Holt clearance to wave the people through - but then closed up the bridge again.
By Wednesday night, dump trucks were backfilling around the bridge with gravel, and authorities were letting some people - residents only - cross.
by CNB