A particular memory I have from the Election Day flood of 1985 is setting up a makeshift darkroom in a bathroom at the Howard Johnson’s Hotel, north of Lexington, to develop film and print photos documenting the flood in Buena Vista.
I was working for The News and County Press, a successor publication to The Buena Vista News, as a photographer and reporter. One of my main responsibilities was doing the darkroom work, which couldn’t be done that day at the newspaper office on Magnolia Avenue in downtown Buena Vista, where floodwaters had poured through hours earlier.
The flood occurred on a Tuesday and was the culmination of days of nearly nonstop rain that came from the remnants of Hurricane Juan and a converging weather system. Tuesdays were press days for us, when we put the newspaper together, but with all the flood damage to production equipment, that couldn’t be done at our Buena Vista office.
My wife Becca and I lived in half of a duplex on high ground, several blocks from flooded downtown Buena Vista. I was awakened at dawn by knocking at my door by a friend and fellow newspaper employee, Kenny Agnor, who informed me of the magnitude of the flooding. “It’s worse than the Flood of ’69,” he proclaimed, alluding to the flooding from remnants of Hurricane Camille that caused destruction and even deaths in Buena Vista and Rockbridge County.
Another friend of ours, Patsy Hartless, a fellow teacher of Becca’s in the Buena Vista schools, had spent the night with us because there was no way for her to make it to her home in Vesuvius, with floodwaters inundating Va. 608 along the South River. In our apartment, we were without water and electricity, like most everyone else in Buena Vista. I spent the day of the flood wandering around town surveying and photographing the flooding and its aftermath. The rain had finally stopped early in the day, allowing the floodwaters to recede and return to the Maury River by later in the morning or early afternoon.
At some point during the day I met up with the newspaper’s editor, Doug Harwood, and publisher, Kitty Sachs. They were determined to get the newspaper out – to not miss a single edition. Arrangements were made to have that week’s paper produced at The Staunton News-Leader. I was told to get a room at the Howard Johnson’s. I transported darkroom equipment and supplies there and set up shop in a bathroom.
After developing the film and printing the pictures, I drove the photos to Staunton, where Doug and Kitty inserted them onto the pages of what was probably the smallest paper we’d ever had. Even so, the four- or eight-page paper we produced – I forget which and neglected to save a copy – was published to document what had transpired in Buena Vista on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1985.
Becca and I, meanwhile, spent the night in our hotel room, temporary refugees from the muck and deprivations we’d left behind in Buena Vista, if only for a short while.
