ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010031
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporters' Notebook
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN
Betty Basham is not a skittish woman. But a wrong turn last week after deciding to take the back roads home to Shawsville from Blacksburg scared her silly.
Basham ended up on Dry Run Road, a name most of its residents find quite ironic. It stretches between Catawba and Mount Tabor roads in rural Montgomery County northeast of Blacksburg.
Last week, several people who live on the road came to a county Board of Supervisors public hearing to urge that Dry Run Road be added to the six-year plan for secondary road improvements. They complained, among other things, of having to drive through open creeks over roads and of being stranded when the water rises from flooding.
Armed with stories of "hoodlums" who frequent the road because of its remoteness, and even a video of vehicles trying to pass through rushing water, Dry Run Road residents told the supervisors they'd love to have the kind of roads that other people were complaining about at the hearing.
Basham can back up their complaints, and wants to let county supervisors and others know just how bad the road is. She hopes her voice - as a person who doesn't live on Dry Run Road - will add credence to their complaints.
"That road needs fixing," she declared Wednesday. "I've never been so scared in my life."
Basham called to share her story after reading an article in that day's Current about the public hearing.
Basham said she realized she had made a wrong turn almost immediately, but decided to forge on, knowing that most roads come out somewhere.
But she grew increasingly concerned as she had to navigate her 1987 Cadillac through several open fords in the creek.
One particularly bad place really shook her. "My God, I'm not going to get through this," she remembers thinking. "It wasn't a pothole, honey, it was a river."
Becoming more concerned she would get stranded or stuck, Basham spotted a home and pulled into the driveway, hoping to find someone there who could tell her if she should continue driving the road or turn back. It was about 4 p.m.
Seeing a swing set in the driveway, she decided a family lived there and would be home soon for dinner. So Basham waited. And waited. For two hours, she sat in that driveway, scared to continue, but then scared that nightfall was coming.
(Later, she realized many of the residents were attending the Board of Supervisors meeting to plead for road improvements.)
She decided to continue on, and soon came across a man who told her she should keep driving, and who volunteered to follow her out and see her safely through.
Basham had shared her story with people at her post office and at a neighborhood store.
After reading Wednesday's story about the meeting, she decided perhaps she was sent down the road for a reason, and wanted to let supervisors and Virginia Department of Transportation officials know of her experience, and her support for improvements to Dry Run Road.
"I want people to realize there is a problem. I've been on every kind of road ... I've never been on anything like this," Basham said. "This is not a bumpy road. This is a disaster area. Somebody's going to get hurt. ... Anybody in a regular car should not attempt it."
Basham said she was going to contact her county supervisor, Joe Stewart, to plead for improvements to Dry Run. The supervisors will adopt a revised six-year plan for improvements and additions to the secondary road system after its road committee meets to review the requests.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB