John Boal Photography

A couple weeks back I went to an assignment that, frankly, didn't appear to have much potential. The Freedom Museum, located at the Manassas Regional Airport, had received a tub of personal items that belonged to a sailor from WWII. A reporter and myself were going to the museum to have a look. Certainly there might be something to write, even if it were a press release type of story, but photos? What could be in the tub other than an old uniform and some shoes?? What we found instead was a fascinating collection of belongings and we pieced together an interesting story. Carson F. Powell, a Wilmington, N.C. native, joined the Navy as a 17 year-old (with parental permission, of course) in 1939. He trained in Norfolk and then transferred to San Diego to begin serving on the USS Selfridge, a Destroyer that was in Pearl Harbor that fateful day in 1941. The ship escaped mostly unharmed, continuing to serve at Guadalcanal, and other Pacific battles. However, on Oct. 6, 1943, at the Battl...

Heavy rains all week led to the flooding of Marumsco Creek, normally a small, quiet creek that dives off of the Potomac River and jut horizontally into Woodbridge, running below Route 1. By Thursday, after 3 consecutive days of monsoon-type rain, it overflowed, flooding businesses and destroying an adjacent trailor park. From what people had to say the flooding and destruction happened in the course of less than an hour. Here are my pictures of the heavy rains as I saw them in Manassas, and the aftermath the next day, after we realized what happened in Woodbridge. I should also mention that no one was killed or even significantly injured. The damage is pretty substantial, so this was very fortunate for everyone involved, even if they did lose their homes and most everything in them. Visit insidenova.com to see all the stories. The rain on Thursday was ridiculous. So I walked outside the office and strolled around Old Town Manassas making pictures... Just outside Manassas, near Ben Lom...