September 6, 1996

Hurricane Fran hits Roanoke Valley

ROBERT MOHL
News Editor

	ROANOKE RAPIDS -- "It's just a little yard work," quipped Michael Gray as he
surveyed the 60-foot oak lying in his yard.
	The tree, one of dozens that were tumbled by the power of Hurricane Fran,
turned the front of 714 Monroe Street into a jungle.
	"It was a nice shade tree," said Tawnya Gray. "We didn't even think about it
falling. It weathered Hazel, but didn't weather this one."
	Fran claimed its arboreal victim at 4 a.m. No one was hurt by the fall, which
clipped a corner of the Gray's home before it flattened a pine tree growing in
their yard.
	"We are mighty thankful," said Michael, a welding foreman for North Carolina
Natural Gas Company. Michael had been on the road since 6 a.m. but said he had
found no problems with the utility's gas mains.
	Tawnya, home from work as a secretary at First Union Methodist Church, said
they probably wouldn't do anything until they contacted their insurance agent.
	The Roanoke Rapids Public Works Department wasn't waiting. It had crews
taking trees off the road since 2 a.m.
	"There's a lot of them down," said John Barnes. "It's probably a whole day
job."
	"It's rough out here," agreed Linwood Hendrix, who with Jermaine Riley was
raking debris from the 300 block of Roanoake Avenue. Where were they off to next?
No telling, said Riley.
	Possibly to the New Dixie Mart on Bolling Road where the Davie Volunteer Fire
Department was keeping a watchful eye on a downed power line.
	At 8:30 a.m., long after the hurricane passed, a tree had fallen in the
nearby woods, smacking a power line into the damp earth.
	"It's smoking and burning," said fireman John Lashley. "It could burn
through, but I don't think there will be any real damage. It's so wet out here I
don't think it will get any farther."
	The firefighters were still waiting for busy power company workers to get
there an hour after being called. Despite the storm the crew had only responded
to one other call that morning, a false alarm at the Seiko Plant.
	The downed power line was reported by Angela Wright, a clerk at the nearby
New Dixie Mart. Wright said she was "scared to death" by the line which sent
sparks flying everywhere.
	The tree also knocked out two of the three transformers that supplied the
store and gas station.
	But downed power lines and hurricanes couldn't close the convenience store,
which had above-average business this morning.
	Operating on half-power the clerks were able to get lights, the cash register
and the coffee machine working. But people looking for coffee could only have
decaf, there wasn't enough power to run the bean grinder.