Editor’s note: Cardinal News asked readers to write in with their experiences of the Flood of 1985, also known as the Election Day Flood. The responses were so compelling that we made the decision to publish them as they were written, with only minor edits, so you can feel the immediacy of that harrowing flood in the words of those who lived through it.
Along Mason Creek
I was working for VDOT at the Salem District Shop in 1985. This was my first experience with a major flood. I was living in Bradshaw, along Mason Creek, just past Mason Cove Elementary School.
During our lunch break a co-worker went downtown to Salem and, when he came back, told us that he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get back, as the water was already rising.
By the time I got off work, Rt. 311 was closed.
Mason Creek had already covered the road and was washing away buildings and vehicles. Just before dark it had gone down enough that I could drive home.
It was the next day before I heard about the grandmother and her grandchildren who were washed off a nearby bridge. Many of my neighbors had spent that night searching for them. It was about daylight the next morning that they found the little girl, alive, as she had washed up on dry land. Her grandma and sibling had drowned.
We all felt like it was a miracle that she had survived.
Later in life, I taught Driver Ed and always told my students about that flood and the danger of driving through water, especially across bridges.
—Debbi Hale
A house fire in a flood
In November 1985 I was working at Roanoke Memorial Hospital in the psychology department which was housed in the Rehab, across Jefferson St. from the main hospital. From the upper floors, you could see the Roanoke River, Victory Stadium, Wiley Drive, and the surrounding area.
I lived less than a mile from the hospital and often walked to work but had driven on November 4 due to the heavy rain. Sometime around noon, a colleague told me to go look out the west facing windows, that the water was out of the riverbank and had flooded Victory Stadium.
I thought he was kidding but sure enough, the entire playing field was under water.
Not long after that, an announcement came over the loudspeaker to say that anyone parked along Wiley Drive, which parallels the river, should move their car immediately. Only a couple minutes later, another announcement warned that people parked there should NOT try to move their cars under any circumstances. A member of our staff was parked there; several days later he found his car, slammed up against a business on Reserve Ave., over a mile away.
People left work early to try and get home before floodwaters blocked their way. Even though I lived only a short distance away, the most direct route home was already flooded. It was pouring rain and difficult to see, but I drove south to the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance off Rt. 220, followed it north and came down the Mill Mountain spur to my apartment located on Riverland Rd.
The water had reached the intersection of Walnut and Belleview, only 1/2 block from my apartment, but because it sat at the base of Mill Mountain, the abrupt rise in elevation was just enough to keep the flooding from moving any closer. Instead it flooded all the houses along the river, stopping just short of my apartment, spreading onto the wide flood plain north of the river.
Houses less than a block away had water as high as the second floor, and I later learned that the first three floors of the main Roanoke Memorial Hospital building were underwater. All power was out — no lights or phone — and by the time I’d gotten home and settled, it was dark.
I listened to the sounds of distant sirens and helicopters overhead while I sat at the dining room table with only a single candle casting a surreal light across the room. I kept creeping down to the parking lot to make sure the water wasn’t approaching closer, which would have meant I’d have to move my car farther up the mountain. Miraculously, it never reached the building but residents just a short distance away were not so lucky.
At one point the sirens sounded very close, and I and several neighbors whose houses were even farther up the mountain ventured out to see what was happening. A satellite dish had shorted out in the yard of a nearby house and it caught fire. The fire department arrived but the house was completely surrounded by the dark, surging current, fire hydrants were under water, and there was nothing to be done.
We all watched from a safe distance as the fire quickly enveloped the house and burned it down to the water line.
Fortunately the residents escaped or were not at home when the fire started, so there were no fatalities, but the house was a complete loss. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. I was living alone at the time, and was unable to contact anyone other than reaching out to the people living nearby, which we did, just to make sure everyone was ok.
When I finally was able to reach family and friends the next day, they were surprised to hear it was so bad. Many folks in my neighborhood had to be rescued by boat or helicopter from second story bedrooms, attics, and rooftops.
There were fatalities valley wide, but I don’t recall how many. I was lucky. We in Roanoke were lucky: I know other flooding catastrophes since — Katrina in New Orleans, Harvey in TX, and Helene in Asheville NC and SW VA — were worse in terms of damage done and lives lost, but that one night in Roanoke was a sobering lesson about heavy rain, a narrow river channel in mountainous terrain, and the good or bad fortune of those who lived just beyond the river’s reach, and those who did not.
—Ellen Aiken
Hemmed in by two creeks
I was a senior at then-Hollins College, when, on November 4, 1985, Hurricane Juan brought relentless rain to the Roanoke Valley and to other parts of Virginia.
Carvin’s Creek, in northern Roanoke County, was usually so quiet and wadeable, but that morning it became a torrent of vicious brown water that poured down out of the mountains over the Carvin’s Cove Reservoir dam and turned the lower side of campus upside down.
I had just finished lunch when the rushing water’s power mocked reinforced glass windows and deadbolted steel doors, and overtook the snack bar and the Rathskeller, with its arcade games and oaken tables, in lower-level Moody Dining Hall and the bookstore which stocked thirty-five shades of L’Oreal fingernail polish and a wall-long section of publications by alumnae.
The lower two levels of Fishburn Library, along with the college archives, also fell to Carvin’s onslaught, as well as the basement of Dana Science Building, where only two weeks before, I had played with some of the psychology lab rats.
The call was given to the maintenance crew to “kill the lights.” Students scrambled in the downpours to the far parking lot, called “Siberia,” to rescue their cars and move them to higher ground. There were rumors that some of the students were “hanging from trees” so they could save themselves from the rapidly rising water.
The campus was hemmed in by Carvin’s Creek on the west and Tinker Creek on the east. The dining hall and the food service managers held black umbrellas and helplessly watched the rain lighten up then drum down again, over and over, flooding the parking lot of the student center.
The sewers started backing up. Some of the campus workers had to stay the night. I and my hallmates on the third floor of Main Dorm had to make do with a supper of potato chips, pretzel sticks, fruit and sodas that had been scrounged together by the Resident Assistant. We huddled in the darkened dorm hallway, and played Trivial Pursuit in the fading daylight. With only flashlights and camp lanterns that bleakly illuminated the high ceiling, we talked awhile in the quietness. Afterwards, there was nothing else to do but to go to bed.
The next morning, there was brilliant sunshine. My dormmates and I were ordered to move to another building, most of us still in our nightclothes, for fear of a possible gas explosion. After several hours of being “held prisoner,” we were allowed to go back to our dorm, collect what we needed, and leave campus.
However, for those of us who were driving and going north, we were told to get on Interstate 81, as U.S. Route 11 was washed out in some places and the James River was well over the road at Buchanan. It was also announced by the College president, Paula Brownlee, that Hollins would be closed for three weeks for a massive cleanup, so that the rest of the semester might be salvaged.
I came back to an intensive, accelerated schedule — blocks of 3-hour classes, some lasting until 10 o’clock at night, six days a week and with boot-camp reading and writing papers into the wee hours of morning.
While I was poring over Greek grammar and Plato’s Symposium, a classmate knocked on my door and told me how the cleanup crew had found the lab rats: still in their cages, bodies bloated, caked in silt, fur coming out.
I remembered those warm, smart, beautiful animals, with their luminous whiteness, red eyes, curious noses and the way they had looked up at me when I stroked them. I thought about how they must have spent their last moments: squealing, clawing their way with their dainty little feet to the tops of their cages in that dark basement room, trying to escape the cold wetness that was suddenly cutting off their breath on that too-warm, too watery Election Day.
—Angela Watkins
‘You know nothing lasts forever’
My great-uncle, Bates McCluer, returned from serving as a tank commander in WW1 and built a 20-by-20 log cabin in 1925, on the north bank of the Maury River just upstream of Rockbridge Baths, Va.
He served the RBB and Hays Creek community as a physician for over twenty years and died in the early 1950s. He deeded it to my father before he died. I grew up with access to the cabin and a beautiful riffle in front of it. We named the boulders that were big enough to climb or lie across.
In 1978 I returned to Rockbridge and asked if I could use the cabin for a few weeks until I could find a “permanent” place to live. I was only convinced to move to Lexington in 1985 when I married a great lady with an 11-year-old son whose hobby was to make me lose my temper.
I continued to use the cabin and its massive barn to run my landscaping business. A telephone line was maintained for business purposes.
The Maury had never touched the dry stone foundation of the cabin until the “election flood” of Nov. 5, 1985. It stood about 50 feet away from the river and perhaps 8 feet above “bank full.”
To my knowledge nobody expected a “real” flood on the night of November 4/5. I certainly did not.
As the torrential downpour developed on the evening of 11/4/85 I began to worry. My vehicles, machines, and tools were all in the barn.
I kept calling the phone until at about 4 AM in the morning when there was no tone or message. At that point I left Lexington and drove Rt. 39 to see what was happening.
The river was well over the bridge at the Rt. 39 — Hays Creek, so I backtracked to the Back Draft road and was able to get into the RBB firehouse. I walked the crest of the hills to the north of and parallel to McCurdys Lane, until I was standing in front of John Dudley’s home and farm.
The sunrise was just starting and I was just beginning to see the river.
It wasn’t a river, but an incredible slurry of rock, soil, and water. I could hear the boulders grinding against each other as well as feel the grinding sensations through my feet and legs. An otherworldly feeling.
The river had been separated by an upstream bend in the channel into two forces by the trees and the remarkable amount of debris (houses, cars, trailers, and vegetation).
One force followed the normal river channel between my cabin and Rt. 39 and the other force carved a new channel through John Dudley’s front pasture.
It is hard to explain the emotions as I tried to see through the trees to see whether my cabin was still there. Without my knowledge, John Dudley had roused himself from his sick bed (he had cancer and would die soon) and was standing just behind me.
He said in his deep beautiful voice, “Jay, you know nothing lasts forever.”
The barn was washed completely away. No sign that anything had ever been there. A good friend had moved my trucks to high ground but every tool I had beside my vehicles was gone completely.
Miraculously, the cabin was still standing although the water had washed through the windows and over the fireplace mantel.
My theory of how that happened is another story.
We added a deck as we repaired the cabin and have continued to love it and use it and lend it to friends for the last 40 years, knowing full well that it is on “borrowed time.”
—Jay Gilliam
From Twelve O’Clock Knob
I lived on Twelve O’Clock Knob at the time and we were astounded that officials, weather folks, etc. did not know what was happening.
I had 5 gallon buckets sitting outside. They are 18” deep. After filling up one, I started on another, and it eventually got half full.
I cut my way out by chainsaw to lower elevations, and saw the extreme flooding on the perimeter of the valley. I was astounded when officials lifted the flood watch on Roanoke River, just as all that water was headed that way. The early warning system must not yet have been in place then.
—Liz Belcher
In the school cafeteria, everyone was calm
My husband and I were teachers, I taught data processing and he taught advanced gov. and psych. When things started to get bad I believe we were trying to get the kids home but it flooded so quickly that he and I and a couple other teachers were pretty much trapped at the school because everything was flooded.
We couldn’t get the buses out. Some of them couldn’t get back in from their first runs from the elementary and middle schools.
I think we probably had about 105-130 kids for that area. We got them set down in the cafeteria doing homework while we were communicating. 7 pm at night we were able to get into the cafeteria, we got food and fed them and I believe we weren’t able to get them home until 9 or 10 that night.
It was a long afternoon and evening. We had a situation where we knew we were safe, and knew we could keep the kids safe at the school. It took a while to get home that night.
School was cancelled the next day. There was so much debris that had been brought by the flooding that roads were not very accessible in some areas.
We had talked about getting the kids to sleep on the wrestling mats if they had to. It was a bonding experience, I will say that, everybody pulled together. Most of the communication was done by telephone and that was really about it, as long as the landlines are still up.
You go into an automatic mode of crisis thinking, processing and evaluating what you do, how you do it, what’s the best way to handle this.
I can still see now what things looked like in my mind, because it was dark, and we waited for the police dept. to come in and let us know the roads were clear. Everyone was calm.
—Renee Turk
Blocks of desperation
I had a office on the 15th floor of the building next to the 1st National Exchange Building at the corner of Campbell and Jefferson. My office window looked toward Hotel Roanoke. I was sitting there when the flood started.
I saw the water rising very rapidly from the 15th floor. My car was parked on the 1st floor of the Center in the Square parking garage, and I was worried I’d have to spend the night in my office so I scrambled down there and got my car, couldn’t get out on Campbell Avenue but got out the back door of the garage and turned right which meant I was going the wrong way on a one-way road for 100 yards until I got to Jefferson Street.
I kept going up Kirk Avenue until I got to 1st Street which is at the city municipal building and went down Franklin. I had just been married in December of ’84. I was living with my new wife at Hunting Hills Place, which was not in any danger of floodwater. I remember feeling distinctly a bit of desperation to get out of there. It was just rushing in and rising visibly.
Most people by the time I looked out the window had scrambled out of that area, weren’t many people on the streets, and they were trying to get higher up on Jefferson Street or Kirk Avenue to get at least to Church Street. It didn’t take long to get out of there but if I hadn’t gotten out I would have been there for a while. I was chairman and CEO of Dominion Bank Shares.
It was just a brief period of panic.
—Warner Dalhouse
A different tale
I do not have an awful tale of swift waters, loss of the family homestead, or a submerged vehicle.
I have sleep.
I was at home in Salem during a post-graduation “free space,” through the continuous tolerance and love from my folks.
At noon on the big day of the flood, I was awakened by the phone. I scrambled for it, and my dad comes on the line. He asks me how the house is doing in the storm; he’s worried about damp spots on the basement walls or worse, despite the several high functioning floor drains down there.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Flood? I ran down to the basement to check for him. There’s nothing. High and dry. He can’t believe I slept through something so awful for so many. Me neither.
—Scott Brookman