ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 7, 1996 TAG: 9609090018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LAFAYETTE
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
Kenneth Collins, dressed in his yellow rain suit stained by years of use, stood smoking a cigar and watching a tree float by.
"There's a sycamore," he said to his younger brother, Ernie, who held a beer and wore a camouflage jacket.
Neither seemed particularly fazed by the torrent of milk chocolate-looking water that licked the edges of trailer homes and rushed under the small bridge on which they stood.
The Collins brothers stood in Lafayette, at the eastern edge of Montgomery County, which sustained the New River Valley's most significant flooding Friday from Tropical Storm Fran. No injuries were reported, but dozens of people were displaced temporarily by the heavy rains, which passed on by Friday afternoon.
"Yeah, the sheriff came and said it was mandatory evacuation time, and I said 'OK, see ya!'" said Kenneth Collins, chuckling.
He lives off Lafayette Road, in the same small white house he was born in, along with a wife, a 6-year-old boy and 40 hunting beagles. The house sits a few hundred feet from the water, just past where the North and South Forks merge to form the Roanoke River.
Everyone in his house stayed put during the heavy rains early Friday, as the river swelled six feet an hour, even when the sheriff came. Deputies did manage to evacuate Collins' neighbors, residents of the River View mobile home park.
Of course, Collins' 77-year-old mother, who lives in the park, wouldn't leave. To this family, Tropical Storm Fran was not particularly impressive.
"In '72, we had 8 inches in the house; '92, we had 6 inches. In '85, ... we had tons more wind that this one," Ernie Collins recalled.
Still, the rain washed out a portion of Alleghany Spring Road, south of George's Run, according to state police Trooper Tony Henderson.
Henderson, along with two other troopers and three Montgomery County Sheriff's Deputies spent most of Friday at Alley's Country Store on Alleghany Spring Road. The South Fork of the Roanoke River ran over portions of the road north and south of the store, leaving the law officers and some 50 residents of Alleghany Springs Mobile Home Park at the store for much of the day.
Roads throughout the area flooded, and at one point an eastbound section of U.S. 460 was closed.
Residents of the Smith Village trailer park near Shawsville had to wade through what was once Dark Run Road (and became part of the overflowing Dark Run) to get home.
Rita and Phillip Harris watched the water flow around their mobile home, which sits at the entrance of Smith Village, and over their recently planted grass seed.
"We've lived here five years and I've never seen it like this," Rita Harris said.
When Harris went to work Friday morning, the water was just beginning to swirl close to the bank. But by midmorning her 14-year-old daughter called in a panic. One access bridge into the park had collapsed and another was covered with water and debris.
Harris said fortunately her boss at Rusco Window Co. in Christiansburg didn't mind that many of his employees left by midmorning. Public school students across the New River Valley also got the day off.
The added moisture, which came after three days of rain, hasn't helped farmers harvest their corn, according to Extension Agent Doug Harris, who covers Montgomery County for the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
The water will make it harder for farmers, but luckily, he said, the wind wasn't strong enough to blow stalks over. Some alfalfa fields were blown over, though, and some sod was damaged as well.
"It should be OK," Harris said, "as long as it doesn't rain any more."
The Roanoke River was expected to crest about midnight; scattered showers are expected for today.
Back in Lafayette, Kenneth Collins called on 46 years of experience with the river when he advised, "You can't do nothing with Mother Nature!"
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. 1. Paul Abbott pulls his motorboat toby CNBhigher ground at his home along Brake Road near Elliston in eastern
Montgomery County, which experienced the heaviest rainfall. 2. Jamie
Harris, 12, picks a high spot on Dark Run Road as it is inundated by
overflowing Dark Run, which feeds into the South Fork of the Roanoke
River. 3. At Smith Village Mobile Home Park near Shawsville (above),
residents watch as debris is cleared from under and around an access
bridge that was flooded over by Dark Run. 4. In Lafayette, brothers
Ernie and Kenneth Collins (below) were not the least bit concerned
with the weather as they spent some time on a bridge that crosses
the Roanoke River. Many residents of Rover View Trailer Park,
including the Collins brothers' mother, did not evacuate when asked
to do so by a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy. color.