Members of the Floyd County High School varsity volleyball team celebrate a hard-earned point in their game against Auburn on Wednesday night. (All photos from Doug Thompson)
Clean-up from Tuesday’s storm and flooding did not keep a smaller-than-normal crowd from the gymnasium to cheer the volleyball Buffaloes in a match against Auburn Wednesday night.
The game was delayed from Tuesday and school was cancelled Wednesday but the game was played, providing a brief respite between storms.
The threats and worries of an approaching hurricane comes as residents, businesses and emergency officials still work to clean up the mess from Friday’s deluge that washed out bridges, flooded farms and fields and basements, and left debris and mud throughout the area.
Floyd County Supervisors Wednesday declared a state of emergency for the county and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued a state declaration retroactive to Tuesday. Weather forecasters and emergency workers think back about 30 years — to massive flooding and damage from Hurricane Juan. The hurricane in this weekend’s mix? Hurricane Joaquin.
Even without the hurricane, the area faces a flooding threat from 2-4 inches of rain possible because of possible conditions that exists even if Joaquin turns right and heads out to sea instead of slamming head on around the Virginia-North Carolina border.
Weather guru Kevin Myatt of The Roanoke Times says the possibilities range from “a flooding event to a historic and potentially deadly and destructive storm system affecting a large porting of the Southeast, Appalachians, Mid-Atlantic and perhaps into the Northeast.”
Even the “low end” scenario, Myatt says, would bring more flooding to the area.
For the short term, a 60 percent of showers exists in Thursday’s forecast, increasing to 90 percent overnight and to 100 percent on Friday. A “severe weather” threat is in effect.
Forecasts of increasing wind add more worries about trees toppling from the already-soaked weather and the possibility of massive power outages. Appalachian power trucks were spotted throughout the county Wednesday, repairing damage from Tuesday and dealing with power outages.
Weather threats caused the Floyd County Woman’s Club to cancel its large and widely-anticipated Arts and Crafts Festival at the high school this weekend. No rain date was set because of schedule conflicts. The county rescue squads pancake breakfast at Station 1 is also scrapped.
Weather occupied talk among many of those attending the volleyball game at Floyd County High School Wednesday night. Middle school and junior varsity football games scheduled against Giles on the water-sodden FCHS football field on Thursday are cancelled and varsity football against Radford is an away match. A light sprinkle fell outside the gymnasium and as fans left the game, they looked towards the skies before heading to their cars.
Junior Varsity volleyball action against Auburn.