Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030175
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER NOTE: lede
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was the seventh major storm to hit Virginia this year.
The cold rain that had fallen most of the day in Roanoke turned to snow around 9 p.m., and police and rescue squads stayed busy rushing to accidents on the slick roads.
Hotels were booked solid as those without power flocked to warm showers and a heated room.
``People are swarming in,'' Donita Young, a desk clerk at the Roanoke Airport Marriott, said Wednesday night.
Dana Young, a desk clerk at the Comfort Inn on Hershberger Road, said rooms also were booked there. A couple of the customers were business people from Lynchburg who had to drive to Roanoke to meet clients in a place where electricity was available.
Around the state, about 168,500 homes were without power as a result of the storm, the Associated Press reported late Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the cold, miserable drizzle made Louise Rosser's hair and skin glisten as she waited for the bus outside Valley View Mall.
Frances Taylor, bundled in a green coat with pink socks pulled above her leather boots, waited silently beside Rosser in front of J.C. Penney.
Immediately after boarding the Valley Metro bus at 1:45 p.m. the two strangers struck up a conversation
Their topic: the lousy weather, of course.
``I'm just glad to be someplace warm,'' said Rosser, a cook at the Olive Garden restaurant.
Taylor offered her off-beat assessment of the dozens of school closings across the state.
``The children are so bad these days that they ought to make them go to school in weather like this,'' she said. ``Maybe they wouldn't be so mean.''
The mixture of rain and freezing rain - which turned into snow late Wednesday - once again made roads slick and left many downed trees.
Downed power lines stopped traffic along U.S. 220 in three spots near Martinsville on Wednesday morning. In one case five live power lines landed atop a tanker truck, said Henry County Sheriff's Sgt. D.A. Prillaman. The driver was rescued.
At one point Wednesday, all 9,000 of Appalachian Power Co.'s customers in Patrick County lost electricity, said Apco spokeswoman Victoria Ratcliff.
Glenda Wohlford, administrative assistant for Apco's Pulaski division, said damage from this storm could equal last month's icy mess, when some people went without power for a week.
``We got every problem we had with the February one,'' she said wearily.
More than 17,000 homes in Franklin County and 10,000 in the New River Valley lost power. At 9 p.m., more than 9,000 homes in the Roanoke Valley were dark.
Like Taylor and Rosser, everyone seemed fed up with the wet weather and most conversations touched on the subject.
The mood was dreary, at best.
``What a mess,'' said Martha Barry as she rode a city bus to Tanglewood Mall.
Three Norfolk Southern Corp. workers eating lunch at a restaurant just across the railroad tracks on Campbell Avenue scoffed at the weather forecast being shown on the noon news.
``It's the winter that won't end,'' said a man with "Jim" sewed on his blue coveralls.
The waitress behind the bar offered the workers some consolation.
``I'm worn out with this weather, but I guess it could be worse,'' she said.
Indeed. Interstate 81 was closed just south of Winchester because of heavy snowfall. Forecasters said areas north of Staunton could receive 2 feet of snow before the storm lifts today.
Gov. George Allen declared a state of emergency in the western and northern sections of the state at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
A construction worker enjoying the hamburger steak special at Gary's Little Chef on Williamson Road may have best summed up the situation.
``Yuck,'' he said, looking out the window.
Staff Writer Todd Jackson contributed information to this story.
Memo: slightly different version ran in the State edition.