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Flooding Worst
Since Agnes
By CINDY MAHAN and
TONYA L.CUMMINGS
Rappahannock News Staff Writer*
Seventeen rescue personnel from Amissville performed a daring water rescue last Thursday night.
According to two workers who responded to a call for chest pains at Cross Creek on U.S. 211, Chief J.B. Carter, Jr., and Robert Crofton, U.S. 211 was blocked when they arrived at the scene due to water across the road.
Chief Carter said that the stream, which runs into the Rappahannock River 3/4 mile east of Cross Creek, was flooding and 11 or 12 people were caught in the houses across the stream from the road. Mr. Crofton said the water level was up to the top of the steps to the houses when they arrived.
Mr. Crofton said that, assisted by the Warrenton and Culpeper volunteer rescue squads, the occupants of the houses were brought to safety using ropes tied to trees and guardrails. The children were carried above the water, while rescue workers held onto the ropes while slowly making their way through the water. Most of the rushing water was at least knee-deep; some was as high as the thigh.
One elderly man, who had the chest pains, was rescued from the scene in a “Stokes basket,” which carried him above the water.
Adults from the houses were evacuated in a more shallow part of the water, using ropes to hold onto as they walked through the water to safety.
Chief Carter said that the old dance hall on the property was holding about five feet of water, and if that had given way in the flood, it would have been a “wall of water” coming down on all of them.
Chief Carter said that this was the second time this year that the water had crested above U.S. 211 and flooded the low-lying areas near Cross Creek. He said the last time flooding had occurred in the same area was
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