It will take more than a tornado to blow apart the village of Driver.
The community, known for its independent and sometimes quirky nature, brushed themselves off after an EF-3 tornado devastated the village's crossroads April 28. Residents and business owners were thankful no one was killed.
In spite of the orange "condemned" signs going up on homes and buildings at the crossroads, Joan Mayo, who owns The Knot Hole Stationon Kings Highway, was optimistic as she talked about the outpouring of help for the village.
"It's amazing how the village is coming together - people were coming down Driver Lane with chainsaws and tools to help, Dominos and Papa John's were delivering free pizzas all day," Mayo said, "It will take a village to put this village back together again."
In a matter of seconds late Monday afternoon, the largest tornado in local memory turned Driver into a sinister snowglobe of flying debris.
Shingles, siding and sections of walls rained down on the fallen trees and damaged homes and buildings, some more than 100 years old.
The storm had already wrecked massive, but selective, damage along the Godwin Boulevard corridor and adjacent areas, striking Sentara Obici Hospital, a brand new strip shopping center and numerous newer homes in the developments near the hospital and Nansemond River Golf Club.
But farther north in Suffolk the tornado devastated history and heritage along with structures in Driver.
The dark, whirling winds peeled back roofs and walls, can opener clean, exposing the interior of a 1939 two story Greek Gothic antiques business and flattening several other structures.
The Driver Variety Store, the informal heart of the village, collapsed, trapping one of the regulars who congregate there every afternoon.
Amazingly there were no casualties and even Leroy Schmidt, who was buried under the debris, was back in the village that night after being treated at Obici Hospital.
"Harry Gutelius is the hero," Jason Gould said of the man who rescued Schmidt. Gould and his father, Ronnie Gould, rode out the storm in their village business, the Rio Grande Traders.
In the time it took the Goulds to slam shut their building doors, the storm leveled the Variety Store, owned by Craig Parker. The Parker family have been merchants on the crossroads for almost a century.
As the store went down, Gregory Parker ran out of his own business, Arthur's General Store, across Driver Lane, shouting for his brother Craig.
Ronnie Gould, who a few minutes earlier had warned the Variety Store regulars of the approaching storm, told him Craig Parker wasn't in the store - but no one could account for Schmidt.
As it turned out Schmidt dived for cover under a pile of clothing just before the roof fell in.
"Harry jumped on the roof and, like The Hulk, started pulling off sections of wall to get to Leroy," Jason Gould said.
"I couldn't believe anyone could live through that," Gutelius said. "You don't think about it, you just do it."
The tall and wiry Gutelius, 45, is the third generation of his family to run Virginia Beach Feed and Seed at the end of Kings Highway.
Aside from losing a large inventory of spring plants, the feed and seed store, housed in a 150-year-old train station, emerged from the storm relatively unscathed.
Ken Parsons, who, with his mother Joan Mayo, owns the The Knot Hole Station, was busy Tuesday morning clearing 20 trees that fell around his property across from the store. Two of the trees landed on his house.
"It looks like a bomb hit," he said.
Parsons watched the storm from his front porch and saw his business survive while his warehouse disintegrated.
Greg Parker saw his shop and his home, behind his brother's store, severely damaged as well.
The Harmony House Antiques, in a renovated Masonic Hall, was literally blown apart. Walls blew out and the second story half disappeared as owner Phyllis Murphy and three other women huddled inside.
"I saw Phyllis ten minutes afterward and she was OK but crying for her cats that were inside - they were all gone," Gutelius said.
About a quarter mile up Driver Lane, Mary Margaret Jones, a Driver native, heard a dull roar pass over her brick home shortly after 4 p.m. But other than leaves blown on the lawn, the house had no damage.
Just 400 yards south of the crossroads, as the crow flies, Wayne Rhoads, treasurer of Rountree Construction Company on Nansemond Parkway, watched the storm from company offices.
"There was barely any wind here but we could see things whirling in the wind over Driver," he said.
The tornado was so wide, Rhoads and his co-workers couldn't see the funnel shape, just the darkness.
The company suffered no damage but a few miles away at Sleepy Hole Golf Course, Rhoads said, teddy bears, clothing and pieces of wall were scattered over the fairways, remnants, he guessed, from the Driver devastation. James R. Rountree LLC manages the course for the city.
Jack Blythe, a manager at Rountree Construction, rushed to his home in Sadler Heights, a 7.8 mile ride from Driver, when his wife called to say the tornado had touched down there.
After 80 minutes on the road, Blythe parked his car near Godwin Boulevard and walked to the brick ranch house he's lived in for 36 years.
His home was intact, missing only a few shingles, but some of his neighbors were not so fortunate, losing roofs and pieces of walls.
"Three houses are condemned, but none were leveled like Driver," he said of his own neighborhood.
Driver has faced other challenges in the last three years since the Kings Highway Bridge was closed, severing the village's direct roadway link to Chuckatuck and the Godwin Boulevard area.
Driver businesses have suffered, with the merchants scrambling to stage festivals and events to lure visitors and shoppers.
Over the last several years, the village lost several of its leaders, Red and Virginia Parker and Jacques Gutelius among others, who often held the community together in times of stress.
Squabbles within the crossroads community threatened the once tight unity of the village that prides itself on its heritage and hospitality.
But the freight train roar of the tornado as it plowed through the crossroads may have drowned out any discord.
"If this doesn't bring us together," Ronnie Gould said, "Nothing will."
Phyllis Speidell, 757-222-5556
or Phyllis.Speidell@pilotonline.com