ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 9, 1996 TAG: 9609090078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: STAFFORD
SOURCE: Associated Press
After a passer-by rescued Linda Qualls and her 4-year-old son from the roof of their flooded car, Qualls told the toddler, ``Mommy did a very stupid thing.''
Tired from a long day at work and eager to get home Saturday night, Qualls drove around a barricade marked ``Road Closed.'' She drove right into about four feet of floodwater from the Rappahannock River.
``It was dark and I couldn't see the water until my car was floating,'' Qualls, of Stafford, said Sunday. ``I know how lucky I am.''
Seven people died in Virginia because of flooding from Hurricane Fran. All the dead were motorists.
Safety authorities say most such deaths are preventable, if only drivers wouldn't take foolish chances.
``You just have to use common sense and good judgment,'' said Sgt. M.M. DeLancer of the Virginia State Police. ``People try to go too fast for the road conditions or they think they can drive through water when they can't.''
Cars can stall in a few inches of water, and rising floodwaters can quickly overturn any vehicle, police say.
Those killed in flooding Friday included Anthony Keith Long, 21, and Susan Marie Meadows, 15, both of Riner. Long's car ran off Virginia 658 near Virginia 677.
The storm's first registered fatality in Virginia was Thelma Botkin, 53, who died Friday when she apparently tried to cross a flood-swollen creek in Highland County in an all-terrain vehicle. A Fairfax man was killed when he lost control in a rainstorm and hit a telephone pole, and two young Staunton men died in separate accidents when they tried to cross high water.
Saturday, authorities in Pittsylvania County found the body of a man whose swamped car had been found a day earlier in George's Creek. John Raymond Perkins of Gretna had been missing since he left home Friday to drive to a doctor's appointment in Lynchburg.
Many motorists misjudge the depth of floodwaters, or, like Qualls, simply don't see the standing water, police said.
Qualls, 46, was in the water about five minutes before Kathleen and Clifton Derricott noticed the car.
``We saw the headlights and I thought there shouldn't be anybody down there,'' Kathleen Derricott said. ``Then we saw the car. All you could see was the roofline of it, and this woman and her little boy up on the roof.''
Although she uses a cane to walk, Derricott, 43, of King George, waded into the flooded roadway. Her husband remained at the edge of the water, shining a flashlight.
``I didn't think about it too much. I just waded out to her and got them to dry land as best I could,'' Kathleen Derricott said Sunday.
Firefighters arrived quickly and wrapped her in blankets. Qualls and her son, John, did not require medical treatment.
Firefighters and police didn't lecture her about ignoring the road sign, Qualls said. ``I was the only one saying it was stupid.''
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