DICKENSON COUNTY, Va. (WJHL) – Severe storms that rolled through Southwest Virginia left one person dead and damaged several homes.
Dickenson County resident John Wilmot is one of several residents whose home was damaged by the storms.
“I told my wife ‘it’s coming,'” Wilmot said. “It’s right at the state line.”
Wilmot said that his family was closely tracking the storm before it hit. The strong winds brought down a tree that damaged the Wilmot family’s front porch.
As the chaos was unfolding outside, Wilmot said it was a scary situation for him and his wife inside the home.
“We started seeing limbs flying,” Wilmot said. “We heard a loud thump as this tree over there hit the house.”
Wilmot said that he tried to mitigate any more damage that the storm could have potentially caused.
“I was trying to open up a couple of doors in the house to equalize some pressure,” Wilmot said. “I could feel it trying to hold the doors close.”
Wilmot was surveying the damage done to his home alongside county and state officials on Wednesday. He said that they were lucky the damage wasn’t worse.
“It’s not a great deal of damage,” Wilmot said. “But these days it doesn’t take a lot for it to add up.”
Dickenson County Sheriff Jeremy Fleming said that the storm caused the greatest amount of damage in the northern part of the county. Fleming said that it looked like a bomb exploded after the storm had passed.
“That’s the most destructive damage I have seen in my lifetime here in Dickenson County,” Fleming said
Fleming confirmed that 65-year-old Danny Bruce was the only fatality due to the storm. Fleming said that no other injuries were reported.
County officials are advising residents to conserve water until Thursday to allow the John W. Flannagan Treatment Facility to get water pressure back to normal.
