Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 6

Dailg Prt5 A6 Saturday, Aug. 7, 1993 NEWS WF i 'wftfr Tornado kills 3 near historic Petersburg u1 Wal-Mart was scene of terror I had to hang on for dear life. There were trees going sideways in the wind. I felt like I was being sucked up off the ground with it. Gary Goerss, 30 Petersburg resident was working on a house he owns when storm struck i WI J.

I 1 i tysStgiW 'J III' -t llhhli -err 4 i Ti-n -'J 7 1 Above: Rescue personnel sort through debris at South Side Station after a tornado swept through the Petersburg area Friday. The site, built around 1810, was destroyed; it was scheduled to be renovated this year. Below: A firefighter walks among overturned cars in front of a Petersburg mart Friday. ap photos 4... 4 only rain, wind Hill called to check on their chil dren after hearing about the storms that killed at least four people and injured dozens more.

"We have assured them that we have had no threatening weather," Walker said. "All we've had is rain and a little wind. A couple of tents blew over and some sleeping bags got wet, but that's it." Senate confirms new FBI director WASHINGTON The Senate voted Friday night to confirm U.S. District Judge Louis Freeh to become the nation's fifth FBI director. When officially sworn in, probably early next week, Freeh will succeed former federal judge William Sessions, the first FBI chief ever to be fired.

There was no debate on Freeh, who sailed through the confirmation process. He was approved by voice vote without dissent. Meanwhile, the nomination of Dr. Joycelyn Elders to be U.S. surgeon general got sidetracked Friday amid partisan bickering and the congressional clamor to leave town for the summer recess.

The chamber will now take up Elders' confirmation again when senators return from recess in September, as the GOP wanted. Black bears shot after 2nd mauling BARTON FLATS, Calif. Two black bears were tracked by hounds and shot to death early Friday after a 12-year-old Boy Scout was mauled while he slept and another Scout was clawed in the second bear attack in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California in three days. The assault occurred at Camp Tahquitz, about two miles from another youth camp where 13-year-old Joshua Isaacs was attacked by a bear on Tuesday. State Fish and Game officials say they are reasonably sure that the larger of the two bears they killed is the same one that ripped Joshua's scalp from ear to ear.

King verdict affects new jury selection LOS ANGELES The delicate process of interviewing prospective jurors in the trial of two black men accused of beating a white truck driver began Friday in a newly charged atmosphere. Just two days earlier, a federal judge pronounced a sentence of two and a half years on two white police officers convicted in the beating of Rodney G. King, who is black. The sentence, which was far more lenient than had been wide- 1.. 1 -M.

An to many black people who complain of racial bias in the justice system. Now, although the two cases are not legally similar, many blacks say they will be watching closely to see how the defendants in the new trial are treated. Surviving cultists indicted for murder WASHINGTON A federal grand jury issued an expanded indictment Friday of surviving Branch Davidian cult members in the killing of federal agents at their complex near Waco, Texas. The indictment accuses two female cult members and 10 members of cult leader David Koresh's so-called "Mighty Men" of conspiracy to murder federal officials and murder of such officials, as well as lesser charges. National service gets House OK WASHINGTON The House gave its final approval Friday to a slimmed-down version of President Clinton's plan to offer students help with college tuition in return for national service.

The 275-152 vote on the three-year, $1.5 billion National Service Trust plan was "a major victory" for Clinton, said Rep. William Ford, D-Mich. Rep. Herbert Bateman, R-New-port News, voted against the bill, while Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, Owen Pickett, D-Virginia The Associated Press COLONIAL HEIGHTS.

Va. Dolores Watkins was in Wal-Mart's portrait studio with a friend who was having her two children photographed. A steady rain had turned into a Friday afternoon thunderstorm, a pleasant break from Virginia's two-month drought Then the sky fell. "I heard a rumbling, and I could see the ceiling tiles flapping around," Watkins said. "I just huddled under a table, and I tried to protect my head.

I remember thinking, 'Oh God, I could What Watkins heard was a rare Virginia tornado slicing a 40- to 50-foot hole through the store from front to back. The roof collapsed above Watkins; she was one of the lucky ones. Three people inside died and 1 19 others were taken to hospitals after the tornado touched down at about 1:30 p.m., said John E. Snyder of the Colonial Heights Fire Department. Two people were missing, he said.

Many of the injured had broken bones and head and neck problems, authorities said. "I looked up, and all I could see was sky and beams and insulation," Watkins said. She crawled out of the rubble and quickly found her friends. None was injured. She could hear crying and people shouting to stay away from live wires.

But Watkins, an rescue squad worker in Colonial Heights, thought the atmosphere seemed calm under the circumstances. After the rumbling stopped, Watkins headed for an exit she spotted about 30 feet from the portrait studio. When she saw an ambulance pull up, she quickly returned to the store to start helping the injured. The scene was far different at the front of the store, where the damage appeared to be worse. Spencer Boykin, 25, of Colonial Heights was standing in front of the store when the tornado hit.

"There were people covered in blood, and there was screaming everywhere. It was unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it," he said. Boykin said said he saw several injured people lying still in front of the store, too shaken to move. Angela Crawford of the Colonial Heights Police Department said police and rescue officials still were searching through the debris six hours after the tornado hit.

I Pathway to; were blown out of 25 cars, police said, adding that about 200 rescuers were still working at the scene by early evening. Friday's twister also hit a 15- to 20-block area of Hopewell at about 2:45 p.m., causing heavy damage to Riverside Park Apartments, said Bob Brown, Emergency Services coordinator for Hopewell. He didn't know of any injuries. Gov. Doug Wilder hitched a ride to Colonial Heights, about 20 miles south of the capital of Richmond, on a helicopter being used to transport victims.

"It's devastation," he said in a store parking lot. "The one thing that comes to mind is the awe-someness of nature." Wilder activated the National Guard before heading from the capital to tour the area, a spokeswoman said. The Army said it sent at least three helicopters to help with evacuations. The last tornado in Virginia hit near Augusta Springs in the Shenandoah Valley in 1989, killing two people. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Y. Times News Service PETERSBURG, Va A powerful tornado demolished much of this city's historic district without warning Friday, killing three people and injuring scores of others. The towering column of wind tore apart homes that had survived Civil War barrages, flipped tractor trailers and scattered cars on Interstate 295 and cut buildings in half at a local shopping mall. Local officials estimated that the huge column of wind, which descended from a heavy thunderstorm at about 1:30 Friday afternoon, caused $10 million worth of damage. The National Weather Service did not issue a tornado warning until almost five minutes after the twister touched down, according to local radio stations.

The storm devastated the Old Town Petersburg historic district, which includes several Civil War-era buildings that had drawn tourists to this city about 25 miles south of Richmond. The tornado swept down Old Street, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the historic district, toppling many single-story antebellum row houses and heavily damaging others. South Side Station, an old train depot converted into a flea market, was leveled but no one was hurt, said Charles A. Patton, whose family owns the building. "You think about the historical aspect of the building," Patton said.

"It's lasted 150 years and all of a sudden, it's gone in 10 seconds." Officials said that a single tornado had touched down at the Southpark shopping mall in Colonial Heights, just outside the city limits, where it cut a swath through a Wal-Mart store, from front to back, killing two people. A witness, Mike Johnson, said he had just driven into the shopping center parking lot when "everything started collapsing." He said he had helped pull the bodies from the rubble. Doctors and hearses were summoned to a triage center in the mall parking lot, and 119 people were taken from the mall to hospitals, the authorities said. At about 7:00 p.m., hearses arrived at the Wal-Mart store to begin removing the bodies from the rubble, where rescuers had marked their locations with fishing poles from the store's stock. Shannon E.

Boykin, 21, a Wal-Mart cashier, said that customers who had been waiting at the front of the store for the rain to stop ran back into the store screaming. "I dived under a snack-bar table and covered my face," she said. "Glass shattered, and the whole store came tumbling down. I felt wind and glass rushing by me." About 125 people were taken to six hospitals, and the windows Shorty still dry as flood subsides The Associated Press NIOTA, III. Floyd "Shorty" Hutson, who defied the Mississippi with a handmade dike protecting the homestead where his grandfather farmed, has finally removed the sandbag wall across his driveway.

What had been a sea of flood-water all around the grassy two-acre tract he salvaged is a sea of mud now. And Shorty's still dry. His never-say-die stand has brought teasing and congratulations from neighbors who were submerged after the levee at Niota gave way about a month ago. "Doesn't seem possible that the water could have been all the way up that dike," the 71-year-old Hut-son said Thursday. "Just seems like a dream now," he said, looking around at his 225 acres of rich bottomland settled by his grandfather a century ago, now a coppery mirror in the sunset light, lined with rows of lost crops.

"Our feelings are out with those people downriver that are still fighting it," he said. Here, the water rose and rose, until it licked the tops of some 10,000 sandbags that Hutson, his family and friends laid along the grassy earthen wall he had built up over decades. Hutson maintained 21 pumps to protect the two acres walled in around his house and spew seepage water back into the river. Through many nights before the water retreated, Hutson said, "Every time a motor'd come on or go off I'd hear it. You couldn't sleep but you could rest." Many notes have been sent nationwide to Shorty, including one addressed to "Mr.

Shorty Hutson, A Real American Hero." "We're not heroes. We're just old Americans," Hutson said. DIAMONDS I iTs. i 40 -55 OFF ee one oj the diamond teUcttimb cm the (quality diamonds at a cott. Diamond Gold Outlet Hours: Mon -Sat.

6564 Richmond Rd. Gallery Shops in Lightfoot 3 Blocks E. of Porterv Jamboree site has The Associated Press BOWLING GREEN, Va. Twisters that plowed through central and eastern Virginia on Friday missed a tent city housing 34,000 Boy Scouts by more than 60 miles. Richard Walker, a national Boy Scouts spokesman, said several parents of youngsters attending the Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P.

levees remain strained at places such as Prairie du Rocher, 111., where residents and National Guard troops on Friday sandbagged around scores of spouts of water seeping under a 16-mile barrier. Meanwhile, the House Friday passed and sent to the Senate a $5.7 billion spending bill to repair damage from months of flooding and heavy rain in the Midwest. The measure also provides aid to farmers suffering crop losses this year from the Southeastern drought and weather problems elsewhere. Approving the measure by a voice vote, the House made only minor changes in the bill passed Wednesday by the Senate, which was expected to send the bill quickly to President Clinton. Damage has been estimated at $12 billion.

The loss to farm production will become clearer Wednesday when the Agriculture Department issues its first corn and soybean production estimates based on field surveys conducted this weekend. An aerial view of Floyd Hutson's property on July 16 shows floodwaters surrounding his leveed house. ap Man survives 21 hours in flooded Mississippi fields Thomas Nelson I COMMUNITY COLLEGE r4 Education Your Fall 1993 Registration or bAl scores you have. Aug. 9-12 18 Application deadline is Aug.

12 Classes begin Aug. 19 Apply now to begin the enrollment process for fall registration. To expedite the process, please bring any high school or The Associated Press ST. LOUIS As Glenn Grotegeers clung to a tree in Mississippi River floodwaters, swinging a life jacket over his head and screaming at a helicopter overhead, he felt sure he was headed for a made-for-TV drama. But then the helicopter passed and he knew he would have to rescue himself.

"I thought it was going to be like 'Rescue the helicopter's going to come and they're going to drop a line down to me and everything was going to be swell," he said Friday. The 21-hour ordeal he was recounting began about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a downed tree rammed his boat head-on, dumping him into the water covering the soybean and corn fields surrounding his home. He ended up floating and swimming 20 miles to dry land. Floodwaters generally are subsiding in the Midwest, after contributing to 48 deaths and causing at least $12 billion in damage.

But ,1, Petersburg, voted for it. 6 killed in crash of small plane DELIGHT, Ark. Six people, including four members of a family, died Friday when a single-engine plane crashed during bad weather. The pilot had sighted the airport in Nashville, when he contacted air traffic controllers to say the weather required him to make an instrument landing, said Fred O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Fort Worth. "Shortly after, the pilot came back with some indication that there were instrument problems and that was the end of our communication," O'Donnell said.

From wire wrvlc reports college transcripts and any AC1 Thomas Nelson Community College makes every effort to comply with the American Disabilities Act Please caU Tom KeUen, TDD 804825-2853 or voice 804825-2827. Thomas Nelson COMMUNITY COLLEGE P.O. Box 9407 Hampton, VA 23,670 825-2800 93-741.