Editor’s note: As Patrick County begins another round of cleanup following this weekend’s flooding, longtime local historian Tom Perry reflects on another devastating chapter in the region’s history. While today’s flood is a different event, many of the same communities along the Ararat, Mayo and Dan rivers once again faced rising waters. Perry’s personal memories offer historical perspective on a disaster that remains etched in the memories of many local residents.
Genesis 8:4 “And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.”
This morning I woke up and thought it was 1979. Sadly, I was not 18 years old, but 65. I hope everyone is safe.
If you grew up along the Ararat River, you read the story of Noah and the ark landing on the “Mountains of Ararat.” On the Jefferson Fry Map of our area, Pilot Mountain, Sauratown, and Hanging Rock were listed as the Mountains of Ararat. So we have two communities in Virginia and North Carolina known as Ararat and a river of the same name that connects them.
Twenty-five years ago in September of 1979, I attended my first college class at Surry Community College in Dobson, North Carolina. Appropriately, it was a history class taught by Conrad C. Holcomb. Little did I know that a few weeks later I would experience history face to face and not very pleasantly.
