What's a funny or weird story you remember about this area?

Remember, a few years ago (like '99-ish), when that dude on the Memorial Bridge (I think it was that bridge) held up traffic for like 8 hours, threatening to leap to his death to the water below? I was working a long shift at my old job that day, so luckily I wasn't in that mess. But many people I know were, and they said it was pretty crazy. All of our appointments at my job cancelled, or kept on re-scheduling as time elapsed. Hours upon hours passed, while the police were negotiating with him; people in their cars started shouting, encouraging the man to jump, just so they could move. The highway was backed up for MILES. In the end, the guy never leaped; very anti-climactic for everyone involved.

How about when they found all that toxic waste in the Mantua neighborhood in Fairfax.

Any others you can think of?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2005 04:36AM by VALegend.

I remember when I was in seventh grade, Waverly Crossing was under attack by deer. Three deer jumped through my neighbor's front door (the Walters), cutting their noses in the process. While attempting to get out of the house they ever-so-accidentally entered, they smeared their blood all over the house. Finally, one of the deer ran back into the woods, one ran into my back yard, and another was trapped in the deck. There was a whole crowd outside Brian's house looking at his deck when suddenly the deer JUMPS through the screen in the deck and lands on the ground. People started moving in cuz they thought the deer was dead but when someone got too close the deer jolted up and ran back into the woods. Anyone from the VC block remember that?

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2011 10:55PM by LanEvo.

It wasn't toxic waste it was an underground spill of the oil/gas from those tanks on Pickett Rd. I think it was Texaco at the time, they had to clean up the mess and houses wouldn't sell in Mantua and owners were losing value on their homes.

All of those details are correct, FX Res

it was an awful situation for a lot of folks

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2011 11:35PM by LanEvo.

My fault, I thought it was waste. I had a relative that lived in Mantua at the time, but I don't think she was affected. She was down at the other end, away from the Texaco. But still, I recall alot of talk about the property values and environmental mess.

they wish it had just been toxic waste

while perhaps not exactly on topic, you guys remember when manhole covers started flying 30ft in the air in georgetown? i was impressed they flew that high up. i think it was an electrical problem and the cover became like part of a capacitor and discharged by flying into the air. am i wrong? anyways... pretty bitchin.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

I think I recall hearing something about exploding manholes.

Another one is from before I was born. In 1973, while building Skyline Towers (in Bailey's Crossroads), a part of the building collapsed, killing 14 workers.

Here's a picture of the damaged Towers:
http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/ps/fr/images/Skylinep.jpg

My mother worked at Skyline Towers around 78' and many people still to this day sware they hear things in that building. Alot of the workers still won't go into the top floors because stuff moves and they get "pushed" or "touched."

Does anyone remember a few years ago when a few students at either Lake Braddock or Robinson decided to run a senior prank and put baby oil all over some of the hallways. Like 10 people got hurt. Crazyness

When they added the third lane to the Dulles toll road, then made it an HOV lane, someone took lawn fertilizer and put it on the median to spell out NO HOV. Every time the grass went more than a few days without being mowed, you could see NO HOV.

Exploding manhole covers in Georgetown? That happens about every year. How can anyone not remember that?

Remember all the flooding in Georgetown and Foggy Bottom a couple of years ago when the water main broke? Utilities in that area suck because when the residents of Georgetown blocked extension of Metro into Georgetown (bet they are sorry about that now) the underground utlities in that area were never upgraded.

remember when those two snipers terrorized the area a few years back?


that was fucking wacky as shit!

Well, since this is active again and on the topic of deer..

Quite a few years ago, a deer jumped through the windshield of a minivan on Walney road, lodging itself halfway in. My friend that lived off of Lewis Leigh Ct (Near/in Waverly Crossing, off Walney) happened to drive by, and said they were removing the deer from the windshield with a chainsaw.

I bet that was messy. Both the deer, and the driver pissing herself when a deer came crashing through the front of the car.

The car that I drive has also been a victim of the Walney road deer, though not while I owned it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2005 12:06PM by ben.

RESton Peace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> remember when those two snipers terrorized the
> area a few years back?


We had people afraid to come into work... at 3:00AM. Like they were going to get shot by a sniper while driving in the middle of the night or something.

One time someone was threatening to jump of the Wilson bridge. The cops shot him in the ankle with a bean bag gun and he fell into the water. He was only in the water for a second because cops were on boats and grabbed him immediately. It wasn't that long ago.

Hey, remember when that plane hit the Pentagon? That was fucking wacky as shit. Just wacky man.

I never saw a plane hit the pentagon, just a hole and some smoke.

Remember when the British stormed DC and burned the White House? That was f'd up.

dew Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I never saw a plane hit the pentagon, just a hole
> and some smoke.


dew-

Your not one of those conspiracy theorists, are you? I know plenty of people who were at the Pentagon that day. I know people who saw the incident as it happened. It was an f-ing plane.

I remember when a jet crashed into the Wilson bridge during a snowstorm. I remember Reagan being shot. I remember a blizzard like no other since in the early 80s...and we still had to go to school.

I remember the Super29 drive in movies.

I remember when Fairfax was more trees and woods than houses and streets.

Remember when that shooting took place in that theatre downtown? I think it was when "My American Cousin" was in town. Some weirdo shot some dude in the head and then yelled "F-k the tyrants," or some crap like that. Man. THAT was weird!

You guys remember when the cow truck flipped over at I95 and Telegragh and the interstate had dozens of cows and bulls running through the area? Or when the chicken truck flipped over at the split?

Alot of odd things have happened near W.T. Woodsen High School on Little River Turnpike. A tornado damaged a few homes across the street from the school, then took out the Safeway which was located roughly where Trader Joe's is now. In that same shopping center is an Einstein Bagle Co. which used to be a Roy Rogers. In the late 70s, Roy Rogers himself made an appearance there on the back of a flatbed with his band. Someone (presumably diet conscious) threw a container of cottage cheese on him. While the fellow was being grabbed, Roy was heard to shout, "Cram one of our hamburgers down his throat. That'l teach him."

In the late 70s,
> Roy Rogers himself made an appearance there on the
> back of a flatbed with his band. Someone
> (presumably diet conscious) threw a container of
> cottage cheese on him. While the fellow was being
> grabbed, Roy was heard to shout, "Cram one of our
> hamburgers down his throat. That'l teach him."


That's what the bastard got for stuffing and mounting Trigger.

I remember about two years ago this lady locked herself in her house with her husband, theating to shoot herself. It was like three rows down from my house and all of singletons way was blocked off with hundreds of cops. they had the bomb squad robot out, snipers, swat......it was krazy!

Roy Rogers is good eats

RESton Peace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> remember when those two snipers terrorized the
> area a few years back?
>
>
> that was fucking wacky as shit!

I used to live in NY back then, I remember my friends laughing about why anyone would every choose to live here

ben Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, since this is active again and on the topic
> of deer..
>
> Quite a few years ago, a deer jumped through the
> windshield of a minivan on Walney road, lodging
> itself halfway in. My friend that lived off of
> Lewis Leigh Ct (Near/in Waverly Crossing, off
> Walney) happened to drive by, and said they were
> removing the deer from the windshield with a
> chainsaw.
>
> I bet that was messy. Both the deer, and the
> driver pissing herself when a deer came crashing
> through the front of the car.
>
> The car that I drive has also been a victim of the
> Walney road deer, though not while I owned it.
>
> don,t dream
>
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10/10/05 12:06PM by
> ben.


Just the other night I was coming home from My GF's house, she lives in Manassass. And on the way back I travel walney Because I live close by Chantilly. Well I was traveling walney and a whole HERD of deer crossed and i almost took out the whole herd while going 45 mph

Sorry about the double post, But I also meant to add that they should really consider doing more to get rid of some of the deer population around here.

remember when Freda died and a bunch of wierd folks inundated that semi-popular local underground website?

I was in class, eighth grade, at St. Anthony's Elementary and Junior High School (now Corpus Christi School). It's on Route 7, just west of Bailey's Crossroads. We heard the rumblling and crashing sound, but had no idea until that night on the news what had happened. Turned out that concrete forms were removed before the concrete had fully set. The most bizarre aspect to me was the terribly small price paid in fines by the contractor.

Very old thread but I know you guys have more stories!

That fuel tanker truck flipped off the i-95 bridge onto 395 or vice-versa and blew up.

I remember when a tornado ripped part of the roof off of Woodson High School.

Same twister slammed a parked school bus into the ABC store in Pickett Shopping Center...just the back end of the bus was sticking out of the store. Also leveled a house on Sideburn.

I was teaching at a local secondary school in the late 80's. A former student drove his motorcycle on to the track, gunned it, then proceeded to drive about 120mph into the side wall of the school and killed himself right when classes were going on. He even left his suicide note on the track. They had to put up a big screen over the area while the police and other emergency workers removed his body and his motorcycle from the broken wall. It was gruesome.

trickie

More remembrances:

Hurricane Agnes in '72...the Lake Barcroft dam was undermined and the drained entire lake....royally screwing up Columbia Pike in the process. They had to build a temporary wooden bridge. Another temp bridge was needed on Annandale Road...or was it Sleepy Hollow????


A guy robbing the Roy Rogers at I-395 & Rt 236 (near the infamous IHOP) herded five employees into the walk-in cooler and killed them all, execution style.

June 1987...when gasoline flowed through the streets of Singleton's grove. 4-6 inches deep on the streets...so says the FFX Fire dept.

Well, my incident hasn't really happened yet and probably never will, but here goes:

The posters on Fairfax Underground actually went an entire 24-hour day without posting something about the police and went about their lives like normal people. How's that for a weird incident?

Oh, go back to giving your mother a garden hose enema. This board is clearly more than you can handle if that stuff is such a big deal to you.

A couple of years ago a guy in my part of the county was hanging around at this diner restaurant when he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend. After attacking the guy with a baseball bat, which was grabbed out of his hands, he waited until later to ambush the guy as he was coming out of the building and hit him in the face with an "umbrella-like object" and wound up poking the guy's eye out. My "neighbor" spent about a year in jail. Unfortunately he still lives around here...

Remember when the 18 wheeler hauling dynamite that flipped on the 395/495 interchange and VDOT could not figure out what to do for like three days? Evacuations and road closures galore.

frum da ville Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember about two years ago this lady locked
> herself in her house with her husband, theating to
> shoot herself. It was like three rows down from my
> house and all of singletons way was blocked off
> with hundreds of cops. they had the bomb squad
> robot out, snipers, swat......it was krazy!


That's not in Reston is it? A few years ago something happened and they blocked off Sunrise Valley Drive and environs for an afternoon. I think it turned out to be a cat or something, though.

You are somewhat correct on this one. The exposions did come from outdated utilities and most of the city's utilities were repaced when the metro was dug. However the reason that the metro didn't go through Georgetown was for engineering reasons. The rock there is hard and the tunnels would have to be very deep in order for the trains to make it up the gradient. The cost was emense. The only solution was a lower level flyover on the three sisters bridge. But when the bridge and 266 died so too did any chance of a direct conection to VA through G-town. The cause was not the residents oposition as most people believe.

WashingToneLoc-ian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Exploding manhole covers in Georgetown? That
> happens about every year. How can anyone not
> remember that?
>
> Remember all the flooding in Georgetown and Foggy
> Bottom a couple of years ago when the water main
> broke? Utilities in that area suck because when
> the residents of Georgetown blocked extension of
> Metro into Georgetown (bet they are sorry about
> that now) the underground utlities in that area
> were never upgraded.


I'm sorry this was the post I was referencing.

GuessImGettingOld Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember when a jet crashed into the Wilson
> bridge during a snowstorm. I remember Reagan
> being shot. I remember a blizzard like no other
> since in the early 80s...and we still had to go to
> school.
>
> I remember the Super29 drive in movies.
>
> I remember when Fairfax was more trees and woods
> than houses and streets.

It was the 14th street bridge. It was the same day as the first fatal accident on the metro. Two cars collided. It was also the incident that drove howard stern out of DC. He called up the airline on the show and asked how much a ticket was from national to the 14th street bridge. Thats when dc 101 let him go.

Also do you remember when that gas truck blewup on 395 under a bridge a couple of years back. It was right near pentagon city.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18512-2004Dec22.html

Howard Stern has said many times that the 14th st bridge incident was NOT what actually drove him out of DC. He was fired in June and that incident happened in the Wintertime.

And from Wiki:

Another notable episode was on WWDC-FM (DC101 Radio) in Washington, D.C., in which Stern called Air Florida and asked what the fare was for a one-way ticket from Washington National Airport to the 14th Street Bridge (on the Potomac River, less than one mile from the airport). He was making light of the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 one day earlier, on January 13, 1982, which had killed 78 persons (both on-board the airplane and in vehicles stopped in traffic on the bridge). That June 29, Stern was fired from DC-101 radio after being suspended for criticizing his station management and two other radio stations. Stern's lawyer alleged:

"It's our view that the real reason they've [fired Stern] is they would like to get new DC-101 deejays 'GreaseMan' and 'Adam Smasher' on the air as soon as possible, and hope the audience forgets about Howard, and that's a perfectly rational business judgment."

Howard Stern has said many times that the 14th st bridge incident was NOT what actually drove him out of DC.

Reston Peace is correct. And if I recall correctly, Stern had already signed a deal with WNBC in NY before he made those comments about Air FL.

Texaco bought about the whole block. It was off Tobin, or something like that. Houses were in sad shape last time I was over that way.

Intaeresting incident I was reminded of last year, was the Reston Ebola http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_Reston "outbreak" in Issac Newton Sq.

The building was demolished, when nobody would buy/lease it - a child care ctr. now sits over the land it was upon.

Im pretty sure 266 was kileld by people beeing all NIMBY about it.

"I think I recall hearing something about exploding manholes.
Another one is from before I was born. In 1973, while building Skyline Towers (in Bailey's Crossroads), a part of the building collapsed, killing 14 workers."

I was a student at St. Anthony's Elementary School on Leesburg Pike and we were in school when the collapse occurred. Our classroom was on the east facing side of the building and we actually heard the rumbles and seemed actually to feel it.

I think that construction accident actually caused serious re-evaluation of workplace safety, having ultimately led to some paltry fine, maybe $300.00 being imposed. I won't swear to that last fact, but it seems like the number I remember.

Okay, that's weird. When I posted my comment the website gave me a spam blocking warning and advised me to make corrections before attempting to post again. Then after I checked for errors, I try again and succeed. Only to discover that I had already succeeded without knowing it. It's at moments of great stupidity like this that I seriously entertain the thought of standing for Gerry's post as Board Chair.

"When they added the third lane to the Dulles toll road, then made it an HOV lane, someone took lawn fertilizer and put it on the median to spell out NO HOV. Every time the grass went more than a few days without being mowed, you could see NO HOV."

Weirder than that, I think, when VDOT hung signs around the HOV entrances that proclaimed: "Be A Hero, Report An HOV Violator."

"Herr Kommissar, Herr Kommissar," he uttered breathlessly, "The capitalist pig drives alone in his BMW in the Peoples' Lane!"

Remember when that whacked out Korean guy shot up Virginia Tech? That was something.

the resident cop at west springfield was caught robbing banks, '96 or '97?

who watches the watchers?

Anyone remember the tornado that messed up a few houses in Centreville? I wanna say it was back in 95

There was La Plata too a few years back (f4 tornado nearly demolishing La Plata MD)
But I guess thats not quite in the fairfax area

Centreville? I wanna say it was back in 95

That was in 96. I lived in Cville back then and I drove through the accompanying storm that day on my way home from Reston. I didn't know there were tornados until I got home, but it was the worst storm I've ever seen. There were trees snapped off along the FFX Parkway, the sky was sorta greenish around the horizon, and when i finally got to Cville, I saw the remains of a fireworks stand scattered all over one of the parking lots.

Crazy shit!

Ah yes, that was just after i moved here. There was a boatload of damage around VA run and Cox farms.

I remember when a house on elmwood drive in burgandy manor caught fire and blew up. sadly the only person to survive was the wife, the father and infant son were killed.

Not sure if anyone will remember this..but back when I was at West Springfield Elem (~'86), i had a classmate (Korean) who was out of school for a few days or a week, but longer than normal. Then they found her and her two sisters and mom dead. Mom killed her three daughters, Then hung herself. All because her husband left for another slutbag and couldn't stand the family dishonored or ashamed like that.

How about that..he doesn't even have to pay alimony or child support..and he got some strange!

If life could only be this easy.

A light plane that crashed at hooes and rolling rd sometime in the mid eighties that decapitated a woman in traffic by the name of Angel Mcdevitt. Shortly after that in true fairfax fashion, some stole the wedding band off of her finger while at the scene

In January 2000 there was another would-be suicide jumper from the Wilson Bridge. It caused thousands of fans to be late for the Redskins-Lions playoff game. I don't think they ever identified the second jumper for fear a copycat would paralyze the region every few months.

I remember a guy that got mad at his girlfriend and shot her several times, making her a quadraplegic. Last name was Brewer or Brewin. Father was rich and got a good lawyer, pleaded criminally insane. Happened in the 80's. His brother was Craig, in High School he went out with Bethany Bower (of the Bethany Bower Hour, local TV show) in the late 70s at Robinson.

I went to Lake Braddock and it was taken over by a jealous boyfriend of one of the students one day. Walked in with a rifle and took over the head office. I think that was 1981.

I am going way back...remember the even and odd liscence plate dates for getting gas. We used ride up to Kripy Kreme in bailey crossroads on our bikes and sell them to drivers in gas lines. Before Syline towerer was built it was an aipport . And of the skyline building fell when it as about 1/2 of the way constructed. Rember back in fairfax county schools they did not have GT they just tracked you , you were either in the smart group, average group or dumb group. I wanted to be in the dumb group becasuse my friend was their and she has about 10 tubes of shiny lip gloss that I liked to look at

The Great Bailey's Crossroads Bread Riot of 1987. There was a killer
snowstorm that shut everything down for about three days. Grocery
trucks couldnt get through and shelves were emptying. People paniced
and got into a brawl over the last loaves of bread and containers of
milk. The cops had to break it up. I had just left before it started
and saw it on the local news that night. Time for open carry!

I remember when Litsa and Uncle Fred fought to the death on Bunnyman Bridge to determine the mayor of Midgetville.

JayBee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I went to Lake Braddock and it was taken over by a
> jealous boyfriend of one of the students one day.
> Walked in with a rifle and took over the head
> office. I think that was 1981.


That incedent is still referenced in FCPS safety documents

Here's a drinking game for you. Read through this thread and take a drink every time you see the words "drunk" and "teen" and "decapitation."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2008 03:16PM by WashingToneLocian.

ANYONE REMEMBER THE MAN THAT CAME INTO BRYANT INTERMIDIATE SCHOOL AND TOOK A TEACHER HOSTAGE? I THINK IT WAS ABOUT 1970 OR 1971. WE WERE LOCKED IN THE CLASS ROOMS TILL THEY TALKED THE GUY OUT. I THINK HE WAS AN EX BOY FRIEND.

What about the tornado that touched down on 395 next to the Pentagon (in Fairfax County) in 2001?

MrMephisto Wrote:
>> What about the tornado that touched down on 395 next to the Pentagon (in Fairfax County) in 2001?

One touched down in Centreville when I lived there back in 96. It happened while I was coming home from work, and it was the worst t-storm I've ever seen- the sky turned green while I was on FFX county parkway. It was right before 4th of July, and I remember one of those fireworks stands got blown all over the place near 28/29.

Bonfire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A light plane that crashed at hooes and rolling rd
> sometime in the mid eighties that decapitated a
> woman in traffic by the name of Angel Mcdevitt.
> Shortly after that in true fairfax fashion, some
> stole the wedding band off of her finger while at
> the scene


Oh man..I remember that. Right by my house..that was weird. I still never understood how that happened. Chic was coming home from Erol's. Guess she should have picked out another movie, Sleepy Hollow would have been a good one to watch that night.

I remember in the late 70s when the farmers had a protest on Washington and drove their tractors up here. There were tractors everywhere with signs on them like "Cuck Farter" and other funny things.

There was this as well, speaking of farmers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Watson



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2008 10:11PM by strates.

TheMeeper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Centreville? I wanna say it was back in 95
>
> That was in 96. I lived in Cville back then and
> I drove through the accompanying storm that day on
> my way home from Reston. I didn't know there were
> tornados until I got home, but it was the worst
> storm I've ever seen. There were trees snapped
> off along the FFX Parkway, the sky was sorta
> greenish around the horizon, and when i finally
> got to Cville, I saw the remains of a fireworks
> stand scattered all over one of the parking lots.
>
> Crazy shit!


Or how about the tornados that cut across Picket/Fairfax maybe in the 70's don't remember when.

Also remember Hurricane Agnes (I think sometime in the 60's or 70's, may not have the correct hurricane name though) and my parents worrying about all the devestation that would happen to Bailey's Crossroads when the dam at Lake Barcroft broke.

I also remember when the Kinney Shoes on Columbia Pike in Bailey's Crossroads burnt down. I was eating at the Hot Shoppes across the street in the Nassif (?) Bldg. with my mom and dad and got to sit and watch it all. I was really little, so this was a big deal for me.

Remember also the Skyline crane crash. That was big in the day. Still is if you think about what happened.

And a random one, since I have babbled on so much about the Bailey's Crossroads area (which was so different in the 70's) anybody here go to Fairfax Brewster or Camp Safari? Remember those animal painted vans they used for camp? They had a zebra, lion, leopard. I still have a Camp Safari T-shirt. : )

becky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am going way back...remember the even and odd
> liscence plate dates for getting gas. We used ride
> up to Kripy Kreme in bailey crossroads on our
> bikes and sell them to drivers in gas lines.
> Before Syline towerer was built it was an aipport
> . And of the skyline building fell when it as
> about 1/2 of the way constructed. Rember back in
> fairfax county schools they did not have GT they
> just tracked you , you were either in the smart
> group, average group or dumb group. I wanted to be
> in the dumb group becasuse my friend was their and
> she has about 10 tubes of shiny lip gloss that I
> liked to look at


I remember that Krispy Kreme! Yum. Was sad when it closed. I also remembered the Roy Rogers across and up the street aways.

The other crazy thing I remember happening was when a fairly large plane crashed into some mountain in the western part of Virginia might have been in Loudon. Can't remember which mountain. It was kind of a big crash, but you never hear of anyone talking about this one. I can't even find anything really on the internet, although I recall reading an article somewhere a couple of years ago about it. Think there is some "marker" on the side of the mountain. This was in the 70's too, I think. You could feel the vibration in the Tyson's area when it happened.

I remember back in the early/mid 90's when Fair Lakes (the shopping center, walmart, uptons, kids world, etc) was just built, it was a really windy/rainy day and a woman who worked at walmart had just left work, started driving down fair lakes parkway to stringfellow, and a tree fell on her car. came crashing through the roof, and killed her. how random! talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

i also remember in my old neighborhood growing up in chantilly, when a car driving down stringfellow flipped off the side of the road into my friend's backyard. the car landed on their swingset, they had to cut the car apart to get the guy out.

we had some weird sh*t happen in my neighborhood (foxfield). a family down the street from me had their basement turned into an apt, and their adult daugher lived there. she apparently had got divorced, and was dating a new guy. her estranged husband went over there, killed her, him and turned the gun on himself. it was really weird.

nothing that cool happened in high school (chantilly), other than the bomb threats made weekly by charlie diaz. we all had to be evacuated to the football field while FCPD came in with the bomb detonator and K9's. We had an active gay population, and in the middle of the evacuation two students (both male) went into the middle of the football field while the students were on both sides of the stadium in the stands, and made out. a student happened to snap a picture, and sent it in to the washington blade. i believe chs/fcpd filed a lawsuit against them because they were underage and they had published the picture.

Bailey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TheMeeper Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Centreville? I wanna say it was back in 95
> >
> > That was in 96. I lived in Cville back then
> and
> > I drove through the accompanying storm that day
> on
> > my way home from Reston. I didn't know there
> were
> > tornados until I got home, but it was the worst
> > storm I've ever seen. There were trees snapped
> > off along the FFX Parkway, the sky was sorta
> > greenish around the horizon, and when i finally
> > got to Cville, I saw the remains of a fireworks
> > stand scattered all over one of the parking
> lots.
> >
> > Crazy shit!
>
>
> Or how about the tornados that cut across
> Picket/Fairfax maybe in the 70's don't remember
> when.
>
> Also remember Hurricane Agnes (I think sometime in
> the 60's or 70's, may not have the correct
> hurricane name though) and my parents worrying
> about all the devestation that would happen to
> Bailey's Crossroads when the dam at Lake Barcroft
> broke.
>
> I also remember when the Kinney Shoes on Columbia
> Pike in Bailey's Crossroads burnt down. I was
> eating at the Hot Shoppes across the street in the
> Nassif (?) Bldg. with my mom and dad and got to
> sit and watch it all. I was really little, so
> this was a big deal for me.
>
> Remember also the Skyline crane crash. That was
> big in the day. Still is if you think about what
> happened.
>
> And a random one, since I have babbled on so much
> about the Bailey's Crossroads area (which was so
> different in the 70's) anybody here go to Fairfax
> Brewster or Camp Safari? Remember those animal
> painted vans they used for camp? They had a
> zebra, lion, leopard. I still have a Camp Safari
> T-shirt. : )


I remember that tornado....it was April Fool's Day 1973. Tore part of the roof off Woodson High School, destroyed a house on Sideburn Rd. A school bus parked at Pickett Shopping Center lot ended up INSIDE the ABC store.

You are correct, it was Hurricane Agnes and it was June, 1972. Actually it was the remnants of Hurricane Agnes,,,,no major winds, but an incredible amount of rain. The Barcroft dam didn't actually break, the earth around it gave way and the lake drained out around the dam. Maybe that's why it wasn't catastrophic....the deluge was slower than if the dam broke all at once....all it did was wash out a few bridges downstream like the one on Sleepy Hollow Rd. I remember driving over the temporary wooden bridge they put up.

VABorn/Raised Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My mother worked at Skyline Towers around 78' and
> many people still to this day sware they hear
> things in that building. Alot of the workers still
> won't go into the top floors because stuff moves
> and they get "pushed" or "touched."

I'll have to watch for that: I live exactly on the part that fell down.

Bailey Wrote:
\
> The other crazy thing I remember happening was
> when a fairly large plane crashed into some
> mountain in the western part of Virginia might
> have been in Loudon. Can't remember which
> mountain. It was kind of a big crash, but you
> never hear of anyone talking about this one. I
> can't even find anything really on the internet,
> although I recall reading an article somewhere a
> couple of years ago about it. Think there is
> some "marker" on the side of the mountain. This
> was in the 70's too, I think. You could feel the
> vibration in the Tyson's area when it happened.

It was about 1975. The plane crashed into Mount Weather near Bluemont,VA. Mount Weather was (is?) some type of government communications center and also
serves/d in some capacity as an evacuation point for (then) nuclear emergency and I believe it was the place the Cheney may have gone to after 9/11..

I was a young squirt when this happened. I remember it because a neighbors friends was killed on the flight- their children were given a huge settlement. One put it all up his nose, the other actually donated all her money joined the Jonestown cult and died in the mass suicide..

Bailey Wrote:

> The other crazy thing I remember happening was
> when a fairly large plane crashed into some
> mountain in the western part of Virginia might
> have been in Loudon. Can't remember which
> mountain.

TWA Flight 514 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_514
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameswbailey/sets/72157603232028005/

Also Piedmont 349 crashed near Charlottesville, VA. Noteable because there was one survivor and the fact that the wreckage was just left on the side of the mountain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Airlines_Flight_349
http://www.cvillenews.com/2006/05/05/rey-barry-flight-349/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2008 01:27PM by trogdor!.

trogdor! Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bailey Wrote:
>
> > The other crazy thing I remember happening was
> > when a fairly large plane crashed into some
> > mountain in the western part of Virginia might
> > have been in Loudon. Can't remember which
> > mountain.
>
> TWA Flight 514
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_514
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameswbailey/sets/721
> 57603232028005/
>
> Also Piedmont 349 crashed near Charlottesville,
> VA. Noteable because there was one survivor and
> the fact that the wreckage was just left on the
> side of the mountain.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Airlines_Fli
> ght_349
> http://www.cvillenews.com/2006/05/05/rey-barry-fli
> ght-349/


Great Links. Thanks!

JayBee Wrote:
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>
>
> I went to Lake Braddock and it was taken over by a
> jealous boyfriend of one of the students one day.
> Walked in with a rifle and took over the head
> office. I think that was 1981.

I remember that, I got locked-in for about four hours in my Chemistry class. That was before they even had the term locked-in. None of the kids in school knew what was happening until after we got out. Then there were cops, camera crews, and parents surrounding the school.


Another time the school got locked down was when some guys escaped from Lorton prison. The buses that hadn't made it to the school yet had to return the kids to their homes and they locked the school up with whomever had already made it there.


Anyone remember the tornado that ripped through Kings Park? I think it was in the late 80's. Went straight down this one street. Messed up a bunch of homes.



But nothing was weirder than the sniper shootings of 2002. Life changed then, dramatically. Very weird.

Wasn't there an ebola outbreak in Reston? I think that was the basis for that book the Hot Zone.

I also remember the time that my neighbor's daughter swallowed a quarter. The weird thing about it is that she crapped out two dimes and a nickel.

Rama19 Wrote:
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> Wasn't there an ebola outbreak in Reston? I think
> that was the basis for that book the Hot Zone.
>
> I also remember the time that my neighbor's
> daughter swallowed a quarter. The weird thing
> about it is that she crapped out two dimes and a
> nickel.

The "Ebola Reston" virus has been covered here before. Thanks for the two dimes and a nickel addition though. To my knowledge that has not been covered.

Are you a single male - or at least a looking male? Go ahead and Private Message "spunky" here. She is single and definitely looking.

Didn't Howard say that he didn't really call Air Florida, just pretended to? Anyway, it was memorable.

I remember when he was on just locally, and there was some news about the local PTAs protesting his show. Jeez.


"I see OJ!"

I'll really date myself with this one, but back in the late 70's when I was about 12 there was a kid from Vienna my same age who went missing. His name was Billy Viscidi (spell?).This was maybe a year or so after this sick f---- named Artheur Goode abducted a kid near my 7 Corners home and killed him at the old Tysons Pits, so everyone was pretty sure it was another fruitloop like that again.A week or so went by with a intense search for the kid and what do you know? A detective notices some fresh dirt in the family backyard. A few digs of the shovel later and the kids body is exhumed. Story was his brother killed him accidentally(?) and the thing was covered up by the family to save the brother the trouble. They weren't some shit family either, I think the father worked for the government somewhere..

I was talking a woman that grew up in Vienna a few months ago who knew the family,all I'd remembered is that late that one Summer this stuff was all over the news. I think she said no answers really came from the prosecution of the brother either because it was a juvenile court with sealed records. Weird!

WingNut Wrote:
>> the old Tysons Pits


What is that?

Does anyone remember the Mount Vernon Monster?

True story: In 1979 or 1980 I drove over to a residential area near mount vernon with 3 friends, we parked down past the last house on a street that continued into the woods with a single house at the end. We went to hear the strange screeching animal sound that had been heard by people in the area.

We had been sitting there for about 45 minutes and hadn't heard a thing. We were a bit nervous though, as some of us had been out there before and heard this strange noise. I was sitting in the back seat on the left side.

Suddenly I saw the creature rise up across the street from behind some bushes! The bushes formed a hedge about 6' high and this creature loomed above them. I estimate that its height was around 8'.

I yelled "There it is!", and my friends all turned to look. It looked back at us. Its head was oval shaped and the head, neck and top of the shoulders (all we could see) were covered with smooth, dark hair. Its eyes were dark and glittering. It watched us from behind the bushes.

I said loudly "It's just someone in a ski mask!", loudly enough for the creature (or faker) to hear (the window was open about 6 inches). I was hoping to elicit a reaction if it was someone playing a prank. There was no reaction to my statement.

After a total of around 30 seconds, the creature ducked down behind the hedge and disappeared.

It moved slightly as it stood there, in the way a real animal moves. This was not someone in a suit or some kind of mannequin. It looked something like a large ape, but it stood erect. I'll never forget its face, I can picture it now: oval shaped, somewhat flat, dark hair, shining dark eyes.

I swear I am not making this up.

I returned to the area a couple of times after that and spoke to someone who lived on the street. They said they had seen it before as well. During the same time period there were some news stories on the "Mount Vernon Monster", but I've been unable to find them on the web. Perhaps they could be found in microfilm of newspapers from the time, (probably the Post).

How's that for a weird local incident?

And again, this is a true story.

Does anyone else remember hearing about the "Mount Vernon Monster" in the late 70s or so?

TheMeeper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WingNut Wrote:
> >> the old Tysons Pits
>
>
> What is that?


Over near what is now Westpark and Jones Branch, Tysons Galleria used to be woods and some dirtbike trails. Some of my Pimmit Hills friends called it Tysons Pits, I'm not sure if there were ever gravel pits back there like Hayfield Franconia Pits or it was just a name...The guy who killed the kid there got the electric chair in Florida and was interviewed on death row by John "Pink Flamingos" Waters who has some kind of facination with the macarbe, pedohilia or both..

I remember the Mount Vernon Monster. It was 1978 or 1979 by the golf course.

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any murders in Greenbriar. Apparently in the 70s, a teenage girl was found dead at her home on Morning Spring lane?

Ffx native Wrote:
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> I remember the Mount Vernon Monster. It was 1978
> or 1979 by the golf course.


That's right, the golf course. We were parked very near there.

fyi: Mount Vernon Monster


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

Gravis Wrote:
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> fyi: Mount Vernon Monster


The link talks about an area in Mt Vernon "surrounded by $150,000 homes" was this 40 years ago or was it at the trailer park near the old multiples??

Lorena Bobbitt and John Bobbitt incident was pretty weird.

>
> The link talks about an area in Mt Vernon
> "surrounded by $150,000 homes" was this 40 years
> ago or was it at the trailer park near the old
> multiples??


At the bottom of the article:
"Source: Ashland, Kentucky Daily Independent; Sunday, May 20, 1979"

I think the Mount Vernon monster was already confirmed to be a fake - it was actually Supervisor Gerry Hyland.

I remember in 1995 when the school janitors in DC went on strike by parking buses across teh Roosevelt bridge. Backed up traffic forever in NoVa in every direction, took me 2-1/2 hours to get from Chantilly to Rosslyn. I'd love to have seen a time-lapse satellite sequence of how the traffic backed up.