ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512210054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: 3- Black and white graphic. See microfilm. A look back at 1995
-Whatever happened to...
DATELINE: TIMBER LAKE
SOURCE: By RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
SIX MONTHS AGO, Timber Lake dam broke, sending millions of gallons of water downstream and killing two people. Now the lake bed is covered with weeds. By next Christmas, homeowners hope to be sailing again.
A white cross and red flowers still hang from a sign on the bridge at the Bedford County-Campbell County line where volunteer firefighter Carter Martin drowned while trying to rescue motorists from flooded cars last summer.
A mile upstream, reminders are less subtle of the June 22 flood that caused the aging Timber Lake dam to burst, draining the lake and killing Martin and a Bedford County woman, Doris Stanley, who was driving home at the time of the flood and got caught in the water's path.
Signs in Timber Lake read "Barricade ahead." An orange-and-white fence across the road blocks off the gaping hole where the dam used to be.
The lake itself is now a field of rust- and sand-colored weeds and brambles. Its leaning wooden docks lend a ghostly reminder of the place where residents used to sail and swim and play.
"Most people still suffer from a little depression," said Timberlake Homeowners Association President Bud Koiner. "A few people are positive and just declare that it's just a matter of time, that it'll pass. But for most us, to sit in our living rooms and look at this depressing landscape where there used to be a beautiful lake, the difference is hard to cope with."
It may not be that way much longer, though. Koiner and others involved with plans to rebuild the dam hope to start construction as soon as next summer. And they'll do it without much government help, they say.
Not because they want to, but because they have to.
Shortly after the dam broke, the federal and state governments turned down the homeowners' request for disaster money to rebuild the privately owned dam, saying it wasn't eligible for public funds.
The homeowners decided to pursue an alternative path of financing: The lake area would become a "Watershed Improvement District," or a special tax district. With that status, lake residents' tax money could be used to finance loans for the $1 million it will take to build a new dam and lake.
The state recently granted approval for Timber Lake to become such a district. Homeowners were told, however, that state and federal red tape would delay the formation of the special tax district until 1999 or 2000.
Enter Plan C.
At a homeowners association meeting Jan. 9, Timberlake leaders will have a new proposal: They will ask lake residents to make voluntary annual or monthly tax-deductible contributions based on their property values or acreage, or to take out home-equity loans and make one-time donations that could be as much as $10,000 or more.
Those funds would be used as collateral for a low-interest loan from the Small Business Administration that, if obtained, could mean the dam and the lake would be back by next Christmas.
"It's a bit frustrating that we don't seem to have any help from any governmental agencies," said Everett Chadbourne, an association member who nearly drowned in the flood. "Every time we turn a corner, it seems we suffer a setback. We just have to hope the homeowners out here want the lake back bad enough to sign on."
Bud Colbert, chairman of the nonprofit corporation that will take donations to rebuild the dam, said, "Now that we've essentially been turned down for the [watershed improvement district], I feel better that we've got a course of action. If we want the dam rebuilt, we have to buy it."
Up until now, it hasn't been that easy. T-shirt sales, dances, home tours and other fund-raisers have netted only about $7,600.
But what the events have lacked in money, they've made up for in spirit, residents say. Each of the lake dwellers has found a different way of dealing with the loss. Some planted flowers and gardens in the empty lake. More recently, the local garden club erected a Christmas tree in the lake bed.
"The tree is kind of symbolic of the fact that we haven't given up," Colbert said.
Former homeowners association President Charles Falwell said: "We trimmed the tree and we all had a prayer around it. We called it a 'hope tree,' because we hope we won't be able to put it back next year in the same location."
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1- The Christmas tree Charlie Falwell sees where theby CNBlake used to be is a sign of hope to the homeowners: They hope they
won't have to put it there next year.
2- This is how the lake looked when the dam burst in June 1995.|
WAYNE DEEL/Staff KEYWORDS: YEAR 1995