Downed utility lines knock out power
Gusts from the south clocked at 40 miles per hour cut a swath of destruction across central and upper Middlesex County on Saturday toppling trees across power lines from Jamaica to Topping.
Residents of the Urbanna and Saluda areas lost electricity for about nine hours.
Buddy Wyker’s wind gauge in Urbanna clocked gusts of 40 miles per hour. The angry wind churned Urbanna Creek into white caps and blew the spray north towards the Rappahannock River, he said.
Fallen giants
A tall pine tree fell across U.S. Route 17 about three miles north of Saluda taking a power line to the ground. The highway was blocked for about three hours at the section known locally as “roller coaster,” because of a series of three hills.
Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) crews responded quickly and cleaned up smaller trees on the road section, but had to wait to cut the biggest tree until it was verified for certain that the electricity had been turned off.
Long night
VDOT’s Middlesex Area Headquarters crews responded to the emergency from around 6 p.m. Saturday and worked until to 2 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 4, said Kelly Hanlon, VDOT’s communications director for the Fredericksburg District.
More than 10 other state-maintained roads were affected in the Middle Peninsula evening for downed trees or utility lines, she added. VDOT crews worked on the following roads: Montague Island, Canoe House, Water View, Mount Zion, Forest Chapel, Zion Branch, Town Bridge Road, Red Hill, Garnett Hill, Sibley’s Landing, Locust Grove, and Wake.
Back up
Alan Cash’s trip home on Locust Grove Road (Route 645) in Topping was blocked by a large tree that fell across the road and on a power line. “When I got here, it had just fallen and the wire was still bouncing. There were fires all along the wire and I could hear humming and popping.
“When I saw the tree across the line, I backed my car out of the woods and into a driveway so I wouldn’t have any trees around me,” said Cash.
The Hartfield Volunteer Fire Department responded to the Locust Grove Road fire. Once Dominion Energy turned off electricity, a firefighter was able to extinguish a small fire that remained despite torrential rains that had passed when the fast moving front moved through.
