RICHMOND, Va. -- One Westham family remembers Hurricane Isabel well.
Moultrie and Betsy Dotterer have lived in the Westham neighborhood near the University of Richmond since the late 1990s.
But they don't recall any storm quite like Isabel, which toppled at least 18 trees in their yard, including several that came right down on their house.
“It fell this way,” said Moultrie Dotterer, gesturing toward a bay window. “It was sort of at the end of the tree and the branches came through horizontally. It's like they pushed and then blew out the glass, and the force was so powerful that it blew glass all the way to the other side of the house.”
The Dotterers and their two young daughters watched the growing storm with alarm. “Lots of wind- you could see the trees swirling around and lots of rain,” said Moultrie. “At one point I looked out here and there were two trees slowly coming down, big, tall white oak trees and luckily, they didn’t come down fast enough to break through the roof, but they landed on it.”
That night they and their daughters all slept in the safest spot in their home. “When the power went out, it was starting to get dark, and we couldn’t see,” Moultrie said. “We have a nice, big basement downstairs, so we spent the night in the basement.”
Fortunately, they had purchased a generator as the storm was closing in. “He bought a generator that morning of the storm,” said Betsy. “I was so mad because I said, ‘I can’t believe you spent the money on a generator.’ But I ate those words because the next morning there wasn’t a generator in town.”
Their Westham neighborhood was without power for weeks. “Pure devastation,” she said. “We couldn't even get out of the driveway. The whole neighborhood was a disaster.”
“There was a hundred-plus-year-old red oak tree that fell, and it was like dominoes,” said Moultrie. “It started hitting other trees. I counted 17 trees just in this one area, a three-quarter acre lot. And I'm not counting even medium-sized trees. They were all substantial.”
But the Dotterers say the community really banded together during that time. “The first thing was, I started the generator, and I made coffee for the neighbors,” said Moultrie. “I had a thermos and so that gave me some points in the neighborhood because I provided coffee for everybody. Nobody had power and nobody had really prepared.”
They even gathered in their yard to watch college football during the cleanup, because amazingly their cable still worked.
As for all those trees, the couple said they had almost given up hope they'd ever be able to get out from under them because all of the local tree removal services were swamped. “The frustration was, who are we going to get to help us clean up?” said Moultrie. “Because all the tree services and everybody was backed up, and they had all the work that they could possibly do.”
Then one day a gentleman from the Midwest drove up their street, having traveled to Richmond with his equipment after seeing the storm damage on television.
He was able to take care of their damage and debris, something they are still grateful for.
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