Hearty dose of winter getting harder to swallow

by Wanda Combs
Editor

High speed winds Wednesday (at Press deadline) were threats to power outages. Winds as high as 35 miles per hour were expected.
A storm Friday going into Saturday brought about another foot of snow and had Virginia Department Of Transportation employees working round the clock to improve road conditions. Schools were closed Friday and continued to be closed through Wednesday. Some businesses either chose not to open Friday or to close early. Churches, many for the second week in a row, cancelled their Sunday services.
In addition to dealing with more snow removal, some property owners had other problems. Roger Hollandsworth of Floyd Xpress was scrambling to get repairs done at his convenience store after the roof over his gasoline pumps collapsed. To blame was “too much weight from the snow and ice.” Caught on video, the roof came down at 10:30 Monday night, he said, and the good news was that no one was standing under it at the time. Cleanup and construction crews worked on the roof Tuesday, and by that evening, the pumps were again open.
On Friday night, at about 11:00, a neighbor of the Bonsignores heard a crash at their property. The next morning, the Floyd couple awoke to a surprise. Their double carport had fallen on two vehicles. Bob and Pat Bonsignore found the metal rigs had given way under the weight of the snow on the carport roof. Neighbor Jeff Wade brought his tractor over and lifted the carport to get the vehicles out. The crash had broken both vehicles’ windshields and done extensive damage particularly to one of the vehicles.
Recent storms have brought over two feet of snow to the county, and this season’s weather has some longtime residents reflecting on harsh winters of the past, including one in 1960. Then it snowed from February to March and left more than 50 inches of snow and drifts several feet high.
Chris and Doris Dickerson of New Haven Road in Floyd are two who remember that year. “Snow drifts were over top of the fences,” Doris said. “They were actually that tall. There was just a one-lane road down through here, and it snowed every Wednesday.”
Travel was limited. Doris, who was expecting her first child at the time, recalled that she and Chris would sometimes walk down New Haven Road to Woods Gap Road, where his brother would pick them up and take them over to his house on Route 8.
On March 29, 1960, highway crews had just opened up their road, in time for her to make the trip to the Floyd County Clinic, then a hospital/clinic housed at what is now the New River Community Action building. On that day, daughter Janice was born.
With all the snow, ice and low temperatures this season, Floyd County residents are getting a hearty dose of winter, something they have escaped for several years. Some have remarked they have gotten quite enough. If it is any consolation, however, Doris had one final comment. “This is nothing compared to 1960.”