ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601200014
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Lede
An extra-wavy jet stream and some good old-fashioned bad timing cut power, flooded basements, closed roads and forced dozens of people from their homes in scattered parts of Western Virginia on Friday.
Heavy downpours mixed with tons of melting snow from last week's storm, causing small streams and major rivers - including the Roanoke, New, James and Maury - to jump their banks.
Hardest hit were Pulaski, Bath, Alleghany and Rockbridge counties, which all declared a local emergency. Gov. George Allen extended the state of emergency declared Jan. 6 because of the near blizzard. The rains ranged from 1 inch in the New River Valley to 2 inches in Roanoke to 3.6 inches in Rockbridge County.
Throughout the region, flooding closed several major routes and dozens of secondary roads. Water rose and receded so fast that some roads were blocked for only a few hours, said Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Laura Bullock.
"Where people are used to seeing water across the road, there's water across the road," said Bullock, whose updates on closed roads changed constantly throughout the day.
Winds gusting up to 60 mph toppled trees whose roots failed to hold in the saturated ground, causing mudslides and power outages. About 40,000 people statewide lost electricity during the storm, officials said.
In the Hillsville area served by American Electric Power Co., formerly Appalachian Power Co., most of the 6,500 people who lost power had service back by late afternoon, said utility spokeswoman Victoria Ratcliff. Likewise, almost all the 1,900 customers who lost power in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas had power restored, she said.
In Salem, 12 houses were inundated and a trailer park was surrounded by water as the Roanoke River rose over its banks.
And in Roanoke, a water main broke under a bridge at Salem Turnpike and Old Stevens Road N.W. early Friday morning, dumping more water into the streets and draining water pressure from residents citywide. Officials called for conservation measures, but by late afternoon the lines were fixed and water pressure was building back up, spokeswoman Michelle Bono said.
Aside from some homes with flooded basements, there was no other damage reported in Roanoke, Bono said.
Not so in the outlying areas.
"Dear me, our garden is completely covered now," reported Sadie Hepler as she watched the Cowpasture River rise behind her home in Bath County.
"In '85, it was up to the two walnut trees in the back yard, but it's nowhere near that now," Hepler said. Still, the river was raging. She watched an outbuilding float by, and several gas or oil tanks - "big ones, they were just bouncing around."
"The main highway here's like a small river," said Jack Williams, who owns the pharmacy in Hot Springs, where runoff from the encircling mountains ran up to 4 feet deep through town.
By afternoon, the water had receded and left an inch of mud in the pharmacy. "That's nothing new," said Williams, who planned to start mopping up today.
Peak Creek, which winds all through Pulaski County, rushed noisily under bridges and crept up banks. Debris in the muddy brown water clogged the town of Pulaski's water pumps and left its water treatment plant running at about 50 percent capacity. The town got water from Pulaski County for much of the day, until the county began having its own problems with blocked intakes at its treatment plant.
In Giles County, downtown Narrows braced for possible flooding today from the New River as water continued to rise from both Friday's rain and leftover snow. Wolf Creek was out of its banks around Narrows, covering some roads, lapping at houses and partly covering the town park. And in Pembroke, water rose to the windows at two houses.
If surviving wacky weather is any indication of our collective mettle, then 1996 has been the mother of all tests.
"A blizzard, warm weather, floods and more snow - this is crazy weather," Frank Wilkerson said outside his downtown Roanoke diner, The Lunch Box, shivering because he wasn't dressed for the unexpected plunge in temperature Friday.
Basically, what has happened is the jet stream has been all over the map of late, said Peter Schwartzman, a research associate at the University of Virginia's climatology center.
The jet stream is a band of fast-moving air about 6 to 8 miles high that circles the globe. It separates warm air, to the south, from cold air, to the north.
When it's a straight line, Schwartzman said, there's not much to talk about. But when it buckles and bends like a sine curve, we here on terra firma get some extreme weather.
"It's been unbelievably curvy," Schwartzman said. The result: Burlington, Vt., had a record 65 degrees Thursday, for instance, and on Friday, other parts of the mid-Atlantic were reporting temperatures dropping as fast as 20 degrees within minutes.
So what can we expect in the next few days?
Bitter cold this weekend, with strong winds, said Steve Nogueria, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg. And there may be scattered snow flurries - barely a dusting in most places, he said.
Freezing temperatures will turn standing water to ice, but most roads were clear and dry by the time the thermometer dipped below freezing Friday evening and shouldn't be a problem for motorists, Nogueria said.
However, some roads were icing up Friday night, and police departments reported minor accidents related to the ice.
The cold could pose other problems. To the north, Rockbridge County was bracing for the worst of it yet to come. Emergency workers had evacuated almost 100 families, mainly from Goshen and Glasgow, by late afternoon.
"There's still more water that's got to come through," said County Administrator Don Austin. The Maury and James rivers were expected to crest overnight, and below-freezing temperatures could wrench down more trees and cause power outages, Austin said. "We still have a ways to go."
Things weren't much better in Buchanan, where Mayor Rex Kelly was trying to hold on to his humor.
"Come on down and get your feet wet," he told a caller. Within one hour, floodwaters had washed over U.S. 11, isolating the town. Glad Rags, an apparel factory hard-hit in the 1985 flood, had 2 to 3 feet of water, Kelly said.
Last week, the mayor was out plowing streets. Friday, he was answering phones at Town Hall. "This weekend, I'm helpless," he said.
Botetourt County also had waterlogged spots, including Oriskany and Glen Wilton. The James River threatened to cover CSX tracks, and Craigs Creek had covered portions of Virginia 615.
Many back roads were covered with leaves, soft-drink cans, beer bottles and other debris washed out of drainage ditches. Some gravel roads, already soaked by melting snow, turned boglike after Thursday night's soaking.
Staff writers Cody Lowe, Paul Dellinger, Betty Hayden and Kathy Loan and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. 1. A mudslide slows rush-hour trafficby CNBalong Interstate 81 near the Hollins exit Friday morning. 2. Cows
stand in the floodwaters of the south fork of the Roanoke River in
Montgomery County. 3. Catawba Creek breaks out of its banks to flood
a farm just north of Fincastle on U.S. 220 on Friday. 4. GENE
DALTON/Staff. A car lies partially submerged after being washed part
way down Peak Creek in Pulaski. color. Graphic: Map by staff:
Friday's Flooding. color.