Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 5, 1995                   TAG: 9511030111
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

THE FLOOD TOOK AN EVEN GREATER TOLL ON WEST VIRGINIA

"It's around 42 or 43," Al Lisko, the state's recovery director, said of the number of people who died in the flood. At least one victim's body never was found.

Reporters at The Charleston Gazette in the state capital say that 47 people died.

The cost in dollars? About $600 million.

Thirty-three of the state's 55 counties had flood warnings that awful night of Nov. 5, 1985, and 29 of them - 52 percent of the entire surface area of the state - later were declared disaster areas.

Those floods damaged 9,000 West Virginia homes. Some were left standing on end. Whole downtowns were wiped out

Branches of the Potomac River and other streams spread not just a few yards from their banks but across acres and acres to strip soil from farmland that had never been under water in anyone's memory.

If you drive through West Virginia today, you probably won't recognize the scars from the flood. Roads have been rebuilt and vegetation has covered a lot of the ugliness. "But in terms of the natural beauty," Lisko said, "that never recovered."

The impact on the families of West Virginia is incalculable. Old folks used retirement money to rebuild homes and now are strapped for money. Landmark stores, schools, churches and barns are gone forever.

But life goes on, and people like Bill Fouch, editor of the Grant County Press in Petersburg, W.Va., have been amazed at how healthy his town looks.

Federal disaster officials promised that five years after the flood, the people of Petersburg wouldn't be able to tell there had been a flood. Fouch says it's true - downtown looks good.

His newspaper had 6 feet, 4 inches of water covering its typesetting equipment and everything else. Afterward, he stripped the building to the studs, remodeled and became the third paper in his state to convert to computer desktop publishing. "I have nothing in this office that's more than 10 years old," he said, "except a couple of desks that survived."

Ron Grapes, owner of the North Fork Store in Petersburg, said that seven or eight people took shelter at a house near him on the night of the flood, and every one of them drowned. The waters from the north fork of the Potomac River washed away the house and everything around it.

Their neighbors lost vast amounts of property, if not their lives. "Really," Grapes said, "some people never did recover from it."

Western Virginia towns and counties have pretty much shaken the effects of the flood of 1985. They all seem to be taking a different approach to future floods.

Glasgow, where the James and Maury rivers come together in Rockbridge County, was swamped almost as badly in river flooding and mountain runoff last June as it was 10 years ago. Town Manager Bill Knick said both the town and Burlington Industries' carpet plant there suffered nearly $30 million in damage.

The floods of '85 and '95 - as well as other blockbusters in 1969 and 1972 - have shown Glasgow in no uncertain terms that it needs to move people to higher ground. Knick is applying for federal money to buy flood-prone property and relocate people who want to escape the flood plain. That's the only way most people can afford to move.

Goshen, on the other end of Rockbridge, took its own whipping from the Maury River in 1985 and was deluged with water from Mill Creek and other streams. Kim Brill, co-owner of the Mill Creek Cafe, said the community's recovered for the most part, though it still gets flooded every now and then.

Another riverside town, Buchanan in Botetourt County, was hip-deep in James River floodwaters in 1985. Two of its grocery stores were washed out, and never came back.

In spite of it all, Buchanan is looking better than in many years. It's undergoing a major revitalization of its downtown.

As far as flood reduction goes, said downtown project manager Harry Gleason, the town is concentrating on better planning that might minimize floods in the future. Townspeople are talking about building retention basins as well as making a conscious effort not to increase runoff by doing no more paving in town than necessary.

Anyone who remembers flood stories from 1985 may never forget the aerial photographs of Buena Vista, the Rockbridge County city whose downtown was so surrounded by water that only people in boats or helicopters could get anywhere near it.

Before that, Hurricane Camille in 1969 had caused $30 million in damage. Even so, the people of Buena Vista voted down a flood levee for the Maury River a few years later.

The flood of 1985 and its $49 million in damage changed their minds. About 40 percent of flooded downtown businesses became abandoned.

Without a referendum at all, the city, the state and the Army Corps of Engineers now are building a mammoth levee and a system to control both river flooding and mountain runoff. Steep mountains of the Blue Ridge begin right at the city's backdoor.

In a separate program, downtown Buena Vista has put in underground utilities, trees, new sidewalks and street lights and spiffed up the main streets. Nearly all the businesses are occupied again.

City Attorney W.T. "Pete" Robey III credits the flood of 1985 with all of that. "It made believers out of nonbelievers," he said. "'85 put this community on its knees. We'd had all we could take."