by Laurence Hammack | Jun 12, 2011 | Environment
DUO, W. Va. — Up on Shellcamp Ridge, a cluster of ramshackle houses and junked cars lingers where a community once thrived on the coal beneath it. The coal camp of Duo sprang up almost overnight in 1933, when the Raine Coal Co. built rows of identical frame...
by Laurence Hammack | Apr 16, 2011 | Miscellaneous (mostly animals)
On March 13, 2007, a Virginia Tech student walked into a Roanoke gun store, armed with a credit card. A short time later, Seung-Hui Cho walked out of Roanoke Firearms, armed with a Glock 9 mm pistol. It was an unremarkable transaction. Cho said or did little to...
by Laurence Hammack | Jan 2, 2011 | Prisons
INDEPENDENCE — As John Garman walks the hallways and cellblocks of Virginia’s newest prison, he is met at every turn by eerie silence. Prisons are noisy places, and by now this sprawling, 1,024-bed complex should be a cacophony of buzzing electronic gates,...
by Laurence Hammack | Nov 7, 2010 | Environment
On a balmy October evening, deep in the woods of Craig County, Wil Orndorff stood waiting at the mouth of a cave. “We’re hoping the warm weather will bring them out tonight,” he said. “Them” being the bats. About 30 feet inside, a team of...
by Laurence Hammack | Oct 8, 2010 | Investigative reporting
As monthly electricity bills go, this one was a monster: $111,834.08. That was what the U.S. government owed in January to keep the lights and heat running in the Poff Federal Building in downtown Roanoke. The bill was an aberration for two reasons: It came in the...