Torrents leave trail of debris

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Debris piles up behind a bridge that crosses the Bluestone River along Route 19 near Lake Shawnee in Lake Bottom as flood waters continue to recede Sunday. Staff photo by Eric DiNovo

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March 15, 2010

With Bluestone back in its banks residents begin massive cleanup

By BILL ARCHER Bluefield Daily Telegraph The Bluefield Daily Telegraph Mon Mar 15, 2010, 05:00 AM EDT

NEMOURS — Sunday was not a day of rest for many residents of the two Virginias as flood waters retreated back to the still swollen river and stream beds and people took up shovels, rakes and water hoses to start putting their lives back together. “It snuck up on us this time,” Eddie Godfrey of Nemours said. Godfrey and his family live about 40-feet from the banks of the Bluestone River in a picturesque setting in the heart of Nemours, a small company town in Mercer County where workers at the E.I. Dupont de Nemours black powder plant lived during the first half of the 20th Century. “This flood came upon us a lot faster than the flood we had about five years ago,” Godfrey said. “It had a lot more force behind it this time and the road out front looked as wide as the river.” Godfrey said that he and his family were sleeping early Saturday morning when they got a call from his brother-in-law, telling he better get his vehicles to higher ground. “I moved them up to my mother’s place and watched the water come up toward the house. It was up about 4 and one-half feet here.” Godfrey’s sons re-stacked firewood, a neighbor used a pressure washer to clean mud from the driveway and Godfrey was removing flood debris from his front yard. “If you don’t clean the mud off right after it floods, it sets up like cement and it’s hard to get it off of anything. Besides, if you have kids, they’ll find a way to track mud into the house. “When I was cleaning, I came across an orange survey stake that was marked ‘2,340 feet above’ on it,” he said. “It must have washed down here out of the mountains.” The elevation of nearby Bramwell is 2,251 feet, but that is down the river from Nemours. Some homes as well as a garage in Godfrey’s neighborhood were damaged extensively as a result of the flood. “I got to save this dog in a kennel behind one of my neighbor’s homes,” Godfrey said. “When I moved my cars, I looked over and saw that little dog stuck in his kennel and dog-paddling just as hard as he could to keep his head above water. “The water wasn’t high enough so he could get over the fence, but he was stuck in there and the water was coming up,” he said. “I woke them up and they waded out to the kennel and got the little dog out of there. A little while later, the water just swallowed the whole kennel and carried it off somewhere down stream. I had another neighbor over there who lost a car. He just didn’t get it out of there in time.” Bramwell Mayor Louise Stoker was at town hall Sunday afternoon catching up on some work, but couldn’t say enough good things about the way the Bramwell Volunteer Fire Department responded to the emergency. “Members of our volunteer fire department and our chief of police were out on the job Friday night, all through the day on Saturday and into Sunday morning,” she said. “I just can’t say enough about how hard they worked during this emergency. “They responded to a call from a town resident whose basement was flooded, rescued a vehicle from flood waters on River Road and worked with other emergency personnel where roads were blocked,” Stoker said. “Our emergency responders worked very hard this weekend to help people.” Deputy J.E. Coulter of the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday evening that there are some places in Mercer County where water is still standing in pools where flood waters pushed out of area stream and river banks. “I believe everything’s gotten back to where it’s bearable again,” Coulter said. “I know Department of Highways crews have hauled a lot of debris out of the roads and the roads that were closed on Saturday are open know. I also know that we’re going to have a big cleanup ahead of us.” Coulter was on patrol Friday night, and had to move his personal vehicle to higher ground after he finished his shift early Saturday morning. “It was nasty out there that night,” Coulter said. The Blacksburg, Va., office of the National Weather Service is forecasting rain, changing to snow and back to rain this morning, with rain still in the forecast on Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service has clearing skies in the mid-week forecast with rain returning late Saturday. — Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com