ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: EAGLE ROCK
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
RESIDENTS RALLIED to come up with a plan to save or at least delay the demise of the U.S. 220 bridge that the town views as its main artery.
This little riverbank settlement had a shining moment Monday night, right in the face of what common opinion holds is a very dim future.
With the impending doom of the bridge from U.S. 220 across the James River into Eagle Rock on the horizon, about 250 people gathered at the local elementary school to see if they could come up with a way to save the 60-year-old span.
They wore black ribbons on their shirts to mock the town's predicted demise.
It was the kind of rare moment of almost total unity that can happen only in a place like Eagle Rock, where townsfolk are bound together by geography and circumstances, and one event can affect everyone.
The bridge is not the only way into town, but its removal will suddenly put busy 220 four miles farther away. Its removal will, many people say, cut the town off from the main source of what little commerce survived the flood of 1985.
The Virginia Department of Transportation plans to begin taking bids on the removal of the bridge in April, with work expected to begin in early July, Salem district administrator Fred Altizer said. The removal of the bridge should cost less than $500,000, he said. Replacing the bridge could cost at least $2 million - too much, VDOT says, for a bridge serving a community of about 300.
Monday night, residents spit out ideas ranging from marching on the Governor's Mansion and writing letters to suing the state to delay the bridge's destruction.
One man volunteered to paint "Save the Eagle Rock Bridge" on the side of his pot-belled pigs and release them on the governor's lawn.
"The steam was definitely there," said the Rev. Robert McRae, pastor of Galatia Presbyterian Church and an Eagle Rock resident for 13 years. He moderated the meeting and said he's never seen so much of the community gathered in one place before.
"I felt like I needed to preach," he said. And he did a little.
"In order to get anything done," he told the crowd, "we've got to direct our steam toward a reasonable goal. ... Now, what's our goal?"
"Save the bridge," everyone called out in unison, like a congregation shouting amens.
But if there was any hellfire and brimstone involved, it came two weeks ago, from the editor of a county newspaper. It was a column by Ed McCoy in the Fincastle Herald that, most agree, prompted the turnout Monday night.
"Order the coffin, get the grave ready," McCoy wrote in his "From Under the Elm" column. "Eagle Rock is dead."
It's not the state that will kill Eagle Rock, McCoy wrote.
"It's already dead, or at least it appears to be from here. How else could VDOT and the community's elected officials get away with ripping out one of its main arteries without much more than a whimper from residents and businesses?"
McCoy said he didn't mean to insult anyone. He knew the strong feelings about saving the bridge existed, he said; someone just needed to do a little prodding to bring them out.
"Boy, he just put the fire right in them, didn't he?" said Harold Cook, an Eagle Rock merchant and county Planning Commission member.
Shouts of what to do came from all quarters of the packed Eagle Rock Elementary School cafeteria.
Transportation Secretary Robert Martinez, who recently sent a letter condemning the bridge to County Administrator Jerry Burgess, took a pretty severe verbal beating in his absence.
"He's scared to come up here," one man shouted.
"He ought to be," another said.
"My opinion is we don't have a bridge problem," one man said. "We have a problem with the secretary of transportation." The thing to do, he said, is go over his head.
That prompted the idea of trying to get an audience with the governor. Someone suggested piling onto buses and standing on Gov. George Allen's front porch until he agreed to hear them.
"And we'll all wear black and carry lilies," said Dee Dee Bruce, who has led the fight to save the bridge since its weight limit was reduced eight years ago, signaling the beginning of the end.
Another voice suggested trying to get an injunction to stop the demolition.
"We could always file one of those suits. It might be frivolous, but it might delay them a while," Paul Thurston said.
"On that count, I think we need a lawyer," said Paul Graybill, who doesn't even live in Eagle Rock. He plunked down a brand-new $100 bill on the podium.
Cloverdale resident Bud Brummit suggested trying to get the bridge removed from the primary road system, where it competes for money with much larger projects, to the secondary road system.
That would mean it would compete for funding with projects within the county, and give county officials some control over whether it gets funding.
But Altizer stressed that the move would not reduce the cost of the bridge, and might not make it any easier to build.
Eagle Rock, however, remains undaunted.
"I'm pleased, but I'm not surprised," Dee Dee Bruce said. "Because that's the heart of the town."
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