Della Batts, Herald Staff Writer

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LAKE GASTON — High winds and hard rain took a toll on trees and powerlines throughout the Roanoke Valley during the past 24 hours.

The Lake Gaston area was hard hit yesterday morning but the winds and rain continued to plague the Valley through the night.

“We were runnin’ trying to get away from it!” said Jim Patton of Lakeland Pier and Boathouse, who was at the shore when a sudden and devastating storm hit Lake Gaston Wednesday.

“We were out working on the boathouse and we watched the sky turn black. Then it started to rain.” Patton said, he and the other three men on his crew didn’t think anything of it at the time. They were dry under the boathouse. “One of the guys said, ‘Look at the sky,” and I looked up. Then I said, ‘Look at the water.”

Patton described how the water in front of him turned white, then lifted up from the lake. “The sky turned into a black ball and started coming at us, and we started running.”

Patton said that he and the crew just made it to the truck. “We didn’t have anywhere else to go,” he said as he laughed nervously.

The storm began it’s devastating trek on the north end of Wildwood Point on Mann Drive, behind The Lakehouse around 9 a.m. That’s where the first of the damage is apparent. Downed, uprooted and broken trees hit a mobile home and uplifted a boat dock from it’s resting place. Across the cove, huge cedars and pines  were snapped like twigs and strewn on the Wildwood Point boat docks. The sign and several gutters were destroyed at The Lakehouse.

Apparently, the winds traveled across the road into the southside of the subdivision, crossing Lizard Creek and taking out more trees, but the brunt of the damage was done in Northern Cove.

Joe Zarou was inside his home in Northern Cove and watched the storm come across the lake. “The water started rising,” said Zarou. He held his hands in front of him and shook them in a rising motion as he described the events he saw. “It seemed like about 30 seconds and the water came up like a tidal wave. Out of nowhere the wind just hit. I thought it was going to shatter the glass. Then I saw the guys flying up the hill, and I hit the floor.”

Witnesses said that the water looked like a 10 foot wall coming up the shore. Zarou said that the sound of the wind hitting the windows was like the sound of pebbles hitting glass. “The way it hit the glass was like you had one thousand people outside throwing rocks.”

Zarou said that was when he heard the sound of the trees falling in his neighbors yard. He and the work crew went next door to check the home of Mark Mitchell. Mitchell’s home was the worst hit by the storm. He lost his chimney, and two large pines fell on his roof. Other large pines went down across the driveway, uprooted in the already sodden red clay. One pine fell on his SUV, totaling it. Mitchell was at work when he got the call from Zarou. Power lines were down and debris was scattered across the lawn and adjoining street.

“The fire department was here in 15 minutes,” said Kirk Reilly, as he shared his experience. He lost a few trees and shingles as well. “The wind came up all of a sudden,” he said. “It was horrendous! The water came up and the trees started coming down.” Reilly said that as he watched the storm, it appeared to split in two as it came across the cove.

Reilly gave kudos again to Roanoke Wildwood VFD, saying how happy he is to have them in the community. “And the crews from Halifax Electric. They helped Mark clear his drive. Isn’t that great?”

Although there was a great deal of collateral damage, there were thankfully, no injuries reported.