ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300055
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporter's Notebook
As the wounded sailor grumbled lying on the deck of the ship where John Paul Jones proclaimed he had not yet begun to fight: "Some people never get the word."
That was my thought when I checked with Southwest Virginia's State Police division office early on the morning of Jan. 19 and was told, no, there had been no flooding reported anywhere yet.
I knew better. The basement of my home already had water in it. And I soon found, while driving around areas of Pulaski near Peak Creek, that I was among the lucky ones. Some people's entire homes sat in the midst of floodwaters.
Apparently police, fire and other rescuers around Pulaski had done a good job during the early morning hours anticipating where and when the water was going to rise. They got everybody evacuated wh ootherwise would have been trapped in their homes for the duration.
Sometimes, when Mother Nature throws a tantrum, there is nothing to do but hunker down or get out of the way - as we had learned earlier this month when she dumped a couple loads of snow on us.
"First a blizzard, and now flooding," the headline read - only it wasn't this month's headline, but one in our paper March 25, 1993. History repeats itself, sometimes practically word for word.
Apparently we do tend to remember the good things and suppress the bad. At least I didn't remember how bad some of those earlier floods, dating back to the whopper of 1985, had been until I started looking back in those newspaper files.
A Wytheville service station attendant did remember the ice storms of 1994, when he and many other people were without power for a number of days. At one point during the height of this month's blizzard, he said, the lights of his home flickered and went out. "Awww, noooo!" he bellowed, and, as if they heard him, the lights snapped back on and stayed on.
One area resident who had returned home over Christmas from law school in St. Paul, Minn., where you expect the winters to be harsh, found himself spending his hours digging out his parents' driveway before he could even reach the main road to start back there.
Bad as it was this month, the snow was probably worse (though not deeper) in 1993 when hundreds of motorists found themselves stranded in towns along Interstates 81 and 77. Even the interstates were blocked, and localities had to open school buildings and other shelters to accommodate the reluctant visitors.
The experts always warn motorists not to try driving through water on the road but, several years ago, I thought I had no choice. The water had come up in a remote area of Southwest Virginia where I had gone to get an account of flooding problems, that particular road was the only way out, and I had a deadline to meet.
Stupid. Halfway through what looked like just a little water, the engine stalled.
I pulled off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers, put the car in neutral, got out and began pushing - only to see some news people in a television truck from a certain Roanoke station sitting behind me and happily videotaping my efforts.
They did give me a push in their truck, for which I was immensely grateful. But I just know that somewhere, someday, that incriminating piece of tape is going to turn up.
Paul Dellinger is a New River Valley bureau staff writer.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB