Devastating Virginia floods leave 44 people ‘unaccounted for,’ over 100 homes damaged

New York Post ^ | July 13, 2022 | Patrick Reilly

[Moose4]

I’ve driven through Grundy on US 460 a few times. It’s like a snake, very long and very narrow because it’s shoehorned into a “holler” by the river. Flash floods in those mountains are no joke.

}:-)4

[Moose4]

Mercifully I was too young to remember anything about Camille. I was in Harrisonburg in 1985 with some of the flooding up there (which wasn’t nearly as bad, but still impressive). But what Camille did in the Tye and Rockfish valleys and over by Glasgow was absolutely unreal. Especially since it was (a) completely unexpected, and (b) done in less than eight hours.

Those areas were big enough that they didn’t get torn up by flash floods like further west in the mountains (like Buchanan County). That was just what happened when 25+ inches of rain fell in the span of eight hours. And incredibly localized. We lived less than 15 miles from the Amherst/Nelson county line and my parents said they weren’t even awakened that night by the rain, it wasn’t that bad. 15 miles north, highways were getting washed out, and less than 10 miles north of that, entire families were getting swept away.

}:-)4

[basalt]

the book i read about it, i just couldn’t put it down. Finished it in one day. What struck me about the night it happened...witnesses said they knew something bad was taking place...in the middle of these torrential cloud bursts, middle of the night, suddenly there was the horrible odor of rotting pine, wood, and debris. Here it was the mountainside literally being scraped open, right down to the granite bedrock, exposing centuries old sludges of mud..leaves...trees..Earth. Just a fascinating, horrible event....

[oldvirginian]

Back then it took a couple of days for news to circulate around, but Camille was something else. This was back before the local broadcasters had remote vehicles they could send for minute by minute reporting. Someone had to drive there, take the footage and drive back to the affiliate to broadcast it. IIRC it was a week before they were able to get to all the mountain communities to do a head count. It seemed like there was a new story of death and destruction on the local news every day.
If you can’t remember Camille count yourself blessed.

1985 is known locally as the Election Day flood. What made that one so bad was it had already been raining for days by the time the big rain hit. The ground was soaked and couldn’t take anymore water so it naturally flowed down to the nearest stream, creek or river. Roanoke city and county were hit hard by the 85 flooding and West Virginia was devastated. We got some small flooding but nothing to write home about.

I was driving a truck pulling meat out of the Midwest in 2007 when Greensburg, Kansas got hit by an F5 tornado. That sucker tore right through the middle of the town and destroyed everything. When I drove through two days later the only building really standing was the telephone companies building. Only 11 people died but the whole town was leveled.
Imagine that scene from the movie Twister where they drive to check on Jo’s aunt and the destruction and the people with that dazed “what happened” look on their faces. That’s how the few people who stayed were looking. Dazed and beaten.

I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how powerful something made by man is, it is nothing compared to the forces set in motion by God. Even when He isn’t angry.