THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 7, 1996 TAG: 9609070432
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DANVILLE LENGTH: 57 lines
Fran has come and gone. By sunset Friday, the gray clouds were starting to break up and a few shafts of sunshine were peeking through. But for this old river town, the crisis isn't over yet.
In fact, it's due to peak just this morning.
As it swept across south-central Virginia after pounding the Carolina coast, the hurricane left a legacy that will be felt in Danville for days, if not weeks, to come: the muddy, raging Dan River, swollen to nearly double its 11-foot flood level.
By 9 p.m. Friday the Dan had risen to almost 20 feet and was expected to crest at around 22 feet this morning, inching past the record level of 21.7 feet it reached in 1972.
``I've seen a lot of floods come and go through Danville, but nothing like this,'' said Jim Harris, a beefy, pony-tailed volunteer who was ferrying workers across a flooded shopping center parking lot in his Ford Bronco 4-by-4.
When Harris arrived Friday morning, there was only a small puddle in the lot. By nightfall, the Bronco was sloshing through about 4 feet of brown water as workers labored to get perishable foods out of the shopping center's supermarket.
``We're probably driving over catfish right now,'' Harris said.
He and other workers spent a good part of the day sandbagging a veterinary clinic in the center and evacuating its animals.
For one Danville neighborhood, this was the second hit of the week. Five houses were damaged when a tributary of the Dan overflowed during heavy rains Tuesday. The same area was hit again Friday, incurring additional damage.
At least two churches were severely damaged, one of them perhaps beyond repair. The floodwaters inundated several streets, tying traffic in knots.
The Harvest Jubilee, an annual four-day festival that was to begin Thursday on the downtown waterfront of this textile and tobacco center, had to be canceled, a total washout.
Scores of trees were downed by heavy winds, some of which fell on power lines. At one point Friday, 80 percent of the city was without electricity. By 9 p.m. all but about 20 percent had been restored.
About 50 families were evacuated from their homes, some by boat. Two shelters were opened, but few people showed up.
``Danville's a very caring community,'' said Capt. Doug Gilmore at the Salvation Army, site of one of the shelters. ``In a lot of neighborhoods, when somebody gets flooded down below you, you just double up.''
There was momentary concern Friday that Danville's water supply could become contaminated as the floodwaters neared the filtration plant. But city workers sandbagged it, and Deputy City Manager Richard Turner said Friday night it was out of danger.
There were no deaths or serious injuries attributed to the storm or the flooding.
``We were actually pretty fortunate,'' Turner said. ``Fran kind of stalled over Raleigh and lost a lot of its oomph.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FRAN STORM DAMAGE VIRGINIA by CNB