Officials Detail Close Call With Flooding; Video Now Available

South River Road at Cornwall was among the area roads flooded Monday morning following Sunday night's heavy rains. (Mary Woodson photo) N-G reporter Roberta Anderson narrates the first part of this footage taken Monday at Cornwall. Later footage is from the wayside at Goshen Pass. (video by Mary Woodson

By Roberta Anderson
From Goshen to Glasgow, the sodden soil seemingly refused to accept any more moisture during Sunday night’s torrential downpours.

Instead, the precipitation, which ranged from 2.5 inches in most places to 4.46 in Glasgow and more than 5 inches in Goshen, caused creeks and rivers to swell, according to the county’s emergency management coordinator, Robert Foresman.

Foresman spent 24 sleepless hours monitoring the situation, along with scores of volunteer fire and rescue personnel and law enforcement officials from the county, Buena Vista and Lexington.

Around midnight, he said, he made the rounds of some of the usual trouble spots in Lexington and the county — Furrs Mill Road, Longhollow Road, Possom Hollow — and he found water over the road. “So that was an indication what we were in for,” he said.

As with the December snowstorm, an emergency operations center was established at the Lexington Police Department and Foresman set up contact with local fire and rescue workers. He added that he also was in close contact with Mike Jolley, chief of the Goshen Fire Department and dam operator at Lake Merriweather, to monitor any potential problems at that location.

Many Rockbridge residents spent a sleepless night on Sunday, as well, as they nervously watched the waters rise outside their homes. Out on Kerrs Creek, along South River, in Glasgow and on other county waterways, many residents were awakened by a knock on the door as rescue squad or fire department members or sheriff’s deputies made welfare checks and advised some people to temporarily evacuate their homes. Foresman said about 25 people did move to higher ground. Shelters were opened at the rescue squad buildings in Goshen and Fairfield and in the former Glasgow firehouse. Most people, though, stayed with friends or relatives.

Shortly before 7 a.m. the Buena Vista Fire Department’s swiftwater rescue team was called to Rockbridge Baths to rescue a couple whose home on Island Lane along the Maury River had become completely cut off from the road by the rising river water. Capt. John Rowsey of the BVFD said the water was deep enough that the team was able to use a motor boat to cover the 60 feet of water to save the couple.

Although there were many homes with water-logged basements, Foresman said, no homes were damaged in the flooding.

There were many detours for commuters on their way to work on Monday morning. Motorists encountered red traffic cones blocking the roads and signs warning of roads closed due to high water.

Down on South River, an area devastated by Hurricane Isabelle in 2003, the normally lazy and placid river hurled along the base of the mountain, shooting whitecaps 6 to 8 feet in the air and crawling out over the banks and spreading across fields, leaving cattle to slop about on the mucky hummocks that remained above water. At one home near the intersection of Red Hill Road, a couple was preparing to move their camper and vehicles to higher ground, “just in case.” They had lived on South River for three years, they said, and had been told about the flooding. They looked optimistically at the clearing skies, their water-saturated front lawn and said they were hoping for the best.

The water had completely undercut the pavement on South River Road under the railroad bridge near Cornwall, heaving up the asphalt and closing the road. Jagged pieces of roadbed could be seen emerging intermittently from the rushing waters.

In Goshen, Foresman said, Mill Creek came out of its banks across from the Goshen Town Hall and also flooded the Goshen First Aid field. Va. 39 was closed under the railroad tracks.

The Maury River continued to rise all day as precipitation that fell earlier in Augusta County in the river’s tributaries made its way downstream. The river roared through Goshen Pass, looking and sounding more like a river winding its way down the Rocky Mountains. Logs hurtled along in the current. The swinging bridge near Goshen was completely inaccessible, its steps surrounded in a field of rushing water. At the Goshen wayside, the water came with 20 yards of the newly completed shelter.

South of Lexington, water was a problem as well. Both North and South Buffalo creeks jumped their banks, closing stretches of road in those mountain valleys. River Road north of Glasgow was under water for extended stretches and closed.

Overall, Foresman said the Maury rose anywhere from 12 to 16 feet. He said an attempt to measure exactly how much a river that passes through such varied terrain has risen is difficult. In flatter areas, the water spreads out; in areas with steeper slopes, the water will rise. Foresman said he can say with certainty that at midnight on Sunday that the river gage at the Lexington water treatment plant measured 4.3 feet. By 6 a.m. on Monday, the gage read 13.2 feet. “So we know the river rose 8.9 feet in six hours,” Foresman said.

By Tuesday, the water had receded and the Virginia Department of Transportation had crews out scraping mud, in some cases as much as 8 inches, off roadbeds. Susan Hammond of the Lexington VDOT office said the total cost of the flood damages would not be known until VDOT finishes the work of clearing ditches and culverts clogged with debris. The South River Road has been temporarily repaired and reopened, although a new coat of asphalt cannot be applied until spring.

Finally, Foresman said the events on Sunday night prove again that “we have a group of people here, both professional and volunteers, who are committed to keeping the community safe. The reason people know they can go to sleep at night is because they know these people are protecting them.”
 

This is part of the January 20, 2010 online edition of The News-Gazette.

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