13 injured as flash flood prompts evacuations in Russell County; local emergency declared

Up to 7 inches of rain fell on the Russell County community of Dante on Friday, injuring 13 people and prompting local authorities to send in swift water rescue teams to help evacuate those caught in the rising waters.

State Sen. Todd Pillion and Del. Israel O’Quinn, both R-Washington County, toured the community Saturday morning and reported the number of people injured. O’Quinn said some had chest pain; none appeared to be serious. Pillion said an estimated 36 people were rescued overnight.

“Initial reports were major flooding with people trapped in houses and cars as well as reports of people in the flood waters,” said a social media post by Castlewood Fire and Rescue. “Rescue teams went to work immediately and without hesitation and thankfully no lives were lost that we are aware of at this time. Rescue teams were on site throughout the night and will be there for as long as they are needed.”

Russell County has declared a state of emergency. Most of the roads through town were passable by late Saturday morning.

A donation center for relief supplies has been set up at the town hall in the nearby town of St. Paul. Cleaning supplies, bottled water, non-perishable food and hygiene products are specifically requested (see accompanying box). The supplies are being distributed at the Dante Community Center, but authorities are discouraging people from traveling there.

St. Paul is also opening its community pool for showers. Meals are being provided for those who had to be evacuated at the Dante Community Center at 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Any prepared meals should be taken to Morning Star Church (18240 Alt US-58 E, Castlewood). Pillion described the situation on Saturday as one of “neighbors helping neighbors.”

Some people had returned to their homes after evacuating Friday night, but some couldn’t immediately return because the water rose about 3-4 feet and got inside, O’Quinn said. He said there were about a dozen houses that officials thought might qualify for assistance. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management is assessing the damage.

Also on the scene in addition to local agencies are the state police, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia Conservation Police. O’Quinn said Impact Missions, a ministry of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, which has helped with every flooding event in Southwest Virginia, was already setting up.

Radar estimates indicate 3-7 inches of rain fell in a short time on Friday in a narrow corridor over the flooded  areas, which had received multiple rounds of thunderstorms in previous days. Steep ridges and narrow drainage channels focused the runoff into streams that could not handle it and quickly overflowed.

Thunderstorms with locally heavy rain have been an almost daily occurrence across Southwest and Southside Virginia since late June, minus a few days around the Fourth of July. High pressure over the Atlantic has pumped a steady stream of thick moisture from as far away as the Caribbean over much of the central and eastern U.S., resulting in persistently sticky surface dew points — the measure of atmospheric moisture content from which relative humidity is derived — and unusually high atmospheric precipitable water — how much moisture there is to wring out in the air above — very far to the north.

Storms develop each afternoon and evening from a combination of daytime heating into the 80s and lower 90s, terrain factors that focus lift along ridges, and often subtle atmospheric mechanisms such as weak upper-air disturbances, fading fronts, and the outflow from previous storms. Storm coverage has varied day to day, with great variances from location to location in how much rain is received, as some spots get flooding rain in a short time while others not far away see little or none.

There may be a break in the pattern coming toward the middle of the coming week, as a cold front sliding in from the north reduces temperatures and dew points for a couple days, and quells the daily thunderstorm machine. Hotter weather is expected to return toward the latter part of the coming week and the following weekend.

Roanoke’s swift water rescue team deployed to the region on Friday in anticipation of flooding.

Dante, an unincorporated community of about 588, is in the northwestern part of the county, and while most of it is in Russell, some of it extends into Dickenson and Wise counties. Most of the damage appears to be in the Russell County portion of Dante. The name is pronounced “daint.”

Staff reporter Susan Cameron and weather columnist Kevin Myatt contributed to this report.