Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 29, 1995 TAG: 9506290102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA LENGTH: Medium
The dirty-brown floodwaters lapped against the walls - inside and out - of Todd Mohler's grocery store at 19th and Magnolia on Wednesday afternoon. But Mohler wasn't worrying too much - he was sitting at a picnic table in a dry corner of the parking lot and flipping choice cuts of beef on a sizzling hibachi.
"Hamburgers! Hot dogs! Ribeyes! T-Bones!" Mohler suddenly boomed out, trying to sound a bit like a carnival hawker.
There was nothing else to do but wait until the water made its exit and he could get started with the cleanup.
In the meantime, his friends and neighbors helped themselves. But they were there for more than just the food. The floodwaters were starting to subside and people were showing up to help Mohler mop out his store for the second time in a less than a week.
Leaning across a friend's pickup truck, Gene Wallace peered across Magnolia. He was keeping an eye on the outside wall of the hardware business he manages. The water level had dropped by two bricks in just half an hour.
A few minutes later, Wallace sloshed across the street in his hip waders and started sweeping out Loughhead Building Supply. "You want to move the water while it's still in there, before the mud settles," Wallace said. "If the mud settles, you've got a big mess."
Mohler's son, Hans, started sweeping out his dad's business, Lewis Grocery & Service Station. The father went to work on the parking lot with a garden hose and spray nozzle.
"This is normal," Todd Mohler, 57, said. "I believe this is the seventh time I've had water in the store since I've been here."
He's owned the store since 1963, and among those seven floods were the devastating deluges of '69 and '85. In 1969, water from the Maury River reached the height of a pro basketball center inside his store - 7-feet-2 inches. In 1985, the water reached 6-feet-1. Last Thursday, he got little more than half a foot. On Wednesday the waters were just over 2 feet deep.
Jim Hudson, an Air Force sergeant who works at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, moved into a big white house one street over just two weeks ago. His new neighbors pitched in to help him move furniture when the water started streaming into his basement. "I've been here in the neighborhood two weeks, but everybody said, 'Hey, what do you need? Let's get it going.'''
By 3:45 p.m. Hudson was ankle-deep in Mohler's store, a broom in his hand. Another neighbor, Johnny Hall, was getting his tennis shoes soaked as he also helped sweep out the store. Hall lives on a hill, but he always comes down to help out the businesses that get flooded out.
It's a small town. "Everybody knows everybody," Hall said. "Helping out makes a lot of difference. It'll always come back on you."
by CNB