LYNCHBURG, Va. Ira North and his neighbors heard a cracking sound coming from the earthen dam that held in their 75-acre lake. Then, with the roar of a jet engine, the water broke loose, swamping homes, washing away cars and sweeping a rescue worker to his death.
As dawn broke Friday, residents found carp flopping in a smelly, muddy mire where their back yards and a lovely expanse of blue had been a day earlier.
"There was this huge, huge sound," said North. "It was like a machine, an enormous turbine turning. And that was the dam breaking, and the water rushing over it."
North used to live at the end of a pretty, manmade lake where large-mouth bass were plentiful and power boats were banned. But when the dam built in 1926 broke, the lake went with it, ripping out trees and tossing boats and docks and a child's blue plastic slide in a muddy jumble.
"It drained so quick, we couldn't believe it. It was like somebody took the stopper out of a bathtub Whoosh!" North said.
Rains like no one in the leafy Timberlake neighborhood can remember 8 inches since Wednesday night had pushed the lake waters halfway up North's steeply sloped lawn, nearly submerging his boathouse and carrying off a picnic table.
He and a neighbor watched the water rise for a while Thursday night, then went back inside about 10:30 p.m. Moments later, the dam failed.
"I didn't know exactly, but when I heard it, I had a pretty good idea what had happened," North said.
Lightning illuminated a terrifying scene. In place of the dam was a deep slash of powerful water a river where none had been before. The road on top of the dam was gone.
"We watched in the flashes ... as stuff went over the side," said North's 18-year-old son, Tig.
A mile down Buffalo Creek, the water tore into a four-lane bridge that was already submerged under 3 to 4 feet of water, crumpling steel guardrails like accordions, snapping a telephone pole in half and ripping off huge slabs of asphalt and concrete.
"I was expecting road and I hit a river," said Jason Schnabel, 22, of Bedford, one of a half-dozen people who waded off the bridge after their cars stalled.
Carter Martin, 41, of the Brookville-Timberlake Volunteer Fire Department, drowned while checking inside a flooded car on the bridge. He was harnessed in a safety belt and rope when the water surged and he was swept off the bridge.
Killer's last-minute decision to be an organ donor halts execution
JACKSON, Ga. About an hour before his date with the electric chair on Friday, a killer's newfound desire to become an organ donor won him a delay.
Larry Lonchar, who killed three people over a gambling debt, was granted a stay while his lawyers challenged electrocution as cruel and unusual. He wants a different method, perhaps lethal injection, so he can donate his organs.
However, lethal injection would not necessarily make Lonchar's organs usable.
"It would be marginal, but that would not be the best way to do it," said Dr. James Burdick, a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore.
Butts County Superior Court Judge Byron Smith, who granted the stay of the scheduled 3 p.m. execution at 1:45 p.m., said at a hearing that he would decide the issue by Tuesday. He also said he wanted to consider whether Lonchar was manipulating the courts.
The judge questioned Lonchar at length about whether he understood the request for a delay.
"My life is nothing. I'm not afraid of dying. If I can make my life a little worthwhile, then I'd like to," Lonchar told the judge.
Lonchar, who once vowed never to appeal, changed his mind two years ago about 30 minutes before a scheduled execution. He said his tearful father persuaded him to appeal.
Lonchar still could be executed next week if Smith lifts the stay. The execution order allows him to be put to death anytime before noon next Friday.
Lonchar, 43, was convicted in the 1987 murders of Wayne Smith, 54; Smith's son, Steven, 24; and Smith's girlfriend, Margaret Sweat, 45, over a $10,000 gambling debt he owed them.
Lonchar had raised the possibility of donating his organs last week, but changed his mind because he didn't want to delay the execution. At his hearing Friday, he said his lawyers browbeat him into signing the petition.
In an interview Thursday, he said he was ready to die and planned no appeals.
"I hope there's a heaven and hell and I will be in hell where I belong."
Longtime news anchor Roger Grimsby dies of cancer
NEW YORK TV newsman Roger Grimsby, the acerbic half of the "Eyewitness News" anchor team that made "happy talk" a successful news format, died Friday of lung cancer. He was 66.
Grimsby, whose 40-year news career included on-air stints in San Francisco and San Diego, as well as 20 years in New York, died at Lenox Hill Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Grimsby worked at WABC-TV for 18 years and two years as a news commentator on WNBC-TV. His last TV job ended in 1991 when he was fired as an anchor for KUSI-TV in San Diego.
Despite the "happy talk" label associated with his name, Grimsby's style was anything but. His delivery was laconic, almost deadpan.
"His style was spare. ... His sense of humor very dry. His sense of tragedy very well developed and his feeling for words extraordinary," former co-anchor Bill Beutel said of his longtime friend. "Take all those things together, throw them on the air and you've got Roger Grimsby."
Grimsby's on-air feuds with fellow "Eyewitness News" team members, including Howard Cosell, Geraldo Rivera and gossip reporter Rona Barrett, whom he openly called "Rona Rooter," were legendary.
He once segued into a Barrett report after a story about garbage by saying, "Speaking of garbage."
Former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, part of the "Eyewitness News" team from 1970 to 1972, recalled that once, after days of snide comments exchanged on camera, Cosell launched into a long, windy attack on Grimsby.
"When he finally finishes, the camera goes to Roger and Roger is sitting there, eyes closed and snoring, pretending to be asleep. ... It was the best putdown I ever saw."
A six-time Emmy award winner who covered the Vietnam War and at his peak earned nearly $1 million a year, Grimsby was nevertheless critical of TV reporters who put on Hollywood airs or considered themselves stars.
Grimsby came to New York in 1968 after working for seven years as anchor and news director at KGO-TV in San Francisco. He was teamed with Beutel in 1970 and the two remained a nightly staple for the next 16 years.
After two years on WNBC's "Live at Five" and four months at KUSI, Grimsby moved back to New York City and was working on a biography when he was diagnosed with cancer.
Grimsby is survived by his wife, Maria, and a daughter, Karen. A private funeral was planned. A memorial service would be held later, Beutel said.
Judge sides with defense, Media in allowing release of ex-juror transcripts
LOS ANGELES The O.J. Simpson judge decided Friday to open sealed transcripts of jury dismissal hearings, after one ousted juror claimed she was "sabotaged" and lawyers for Simpson and the media joined her in demanding openness.
Superior Court Judge Lance Ito said he would edit hundreds of pages of documents from the volatile sessions over juror misconduct, omitting anything infringing on juror privacy, and release the transcripts by the close of business July 3.
"Counsel, be careful what you wish for," the judge said as he revealed the vast amounts of information that will be released.
Ito said he was persuaded to lift the veil of secrecy because so many of the 10 dismissed jurors have gone public already.
"I've got jurors out there writing books about this. ... Hardly a privacy interest worth protecting," Ito said caustically. "We have jurors running around in limousines to talk shows."
One dismissed juror, Francine Florio-Bunten, appeared at the hearing, which was held after the Simpson jury retired for the week. Her lawyer said Florio-Bunten believed "she was sabotaged in an effort to get her off the jury by unknown persons."
The attorney said his client wanted the documents unsealed so she would know whether she had been targeted for removal and the reasons for her ouster.
Florio-Bunten said outside court she wants to know who wrote a "mysterious letter" to the judge claiming she, and possibly her husband, were negotiating a book deal an allegation she denied.
"I want to get this cleared up," she told reporters.
The hearing itself disclosed new information, including the demands of lawyers on both sides in private chambers that the judge give some jurors' names to the state attorney general for prosecution on misconduct charges.
No further details were immediately given, although the judge made it clear that not all 10 ex-panelists were dismissed for misconduct.
He said "one or two" were dismissed for other reasons.
