The Ghosts on Elbow Road
For Virginia Beach locals, Elbow Road is a treacherous nightmare, even on clear days. The road is often the main story on the news with reports of deadly car crashes – something that has left many ghosts on Elbow Road. So much tragedy has happened in this area, so much that there are people who avoid the road completely if they can.
Elbow Road is considered Virginia’s “most haunted street” by some, and for good reasons. In just the first few months of 2012, there were 45 crashes, many with fatalities. That was just one year – imagine if you looked up the tally since crashes started happening on the road. And, the accidents are still happening.
Accidents on Elbow Road
If you do an internet search for accidents on Elbow Road, you come up with shocking results. Report after report of deadly crashes over the years can easily fill a person with utter sadness. One article title states it perfectly – “Curvy and narrow, Elbow Road is symbol of region’s problem roads.”
In 2016, the road was shut down for major changes. They widened the road, added shoulders, and more, in an attempt to make this curvy roadway a bit safer for drivers – but it’s still a two-lane road without much room and with lots of scary curves. Before the changes, this two-lane stretch of road connecting Chesapeake to Virginia Beach had absolutely no shoulders, and there aren’t any street lights guiding the way either. With a speed limit of no less than 45 MPH and curves sneaking up after patches of straightaways, there was always an accident waiting to happen – and many did.
If you’ve ever driven on winding roads, you know that going 45MPH can easily have you driving off the side of the road. When those curves sneak up on you at night, and when there are other vehicles heading right at you, it’s scary and dangerous. Ice and wet spots pose an even bigger problem on such curves, and Virginia isn’t safe from either of those things.
When an accident happens on Elbow Road, because it’s such a small width of a street, people either have to sit and wait an hour for things to get cleaned and cleared up or turn around on the narrow road. For quite a while, semi-trucks weren’t even allowed to travel this stretch of road – not just because they cause more wear and tear on the pavement, but they also add to the dangers.
For the folks who live on the curves of Elbow Road, seeing accidents is a regular occurrence, as is seeing people ejected from their vehicles because of these accidents. The sounds of crashes in the middle of the night wake locals up for a peaceful night’s sleep to something horrible and sad. It’s enough to cause nightmares and inspire all sorts of tales of ghosts and paranormal happenings.
Unfortunately, the changes to Elbow Road weren’t enough to completely take away the death toll of the road. On rainy nights it’s still highly dangerous, and it has been closed down due to nasty winter weather conditions and flooding, as well. Locals warn never to take Elbow Road when it’s been raining for several days in a row! Those curves still pose a problem when you’re not watching your speed, and the trees and ditches past the shoulders of the roads are just as dangerous.
But There Are Also Ghosts on Elbow Road
While the stretch of Elbow Road from Chesapeake to Virginia Beach is dangerous in its own right, it’s possible the ghosts left behind on this twisty street are also to blame for some of the accidents. Some folks think so. Spotting something, or someone, walking along the side of the street at night could cause you to swerve into a tree or even into another car.
There are two ghosts regularly talked about along this stretch of road. With the number of deaths due to car accidents, it’s surprising there aren’t more. Then again, perhaps there are, and they haven’t been noticed yet.
The Drowned Girl
A little girl drowned in a lake off of Elbow Road in Virginia Beach. There are a few spots along this road where smaller and larger lakes are within walking distance. None of the stories ever specify which lake it is she drowned in or even give the little girl a name or age.
Nonetheless, there’s a local urban legend that says that if you park your car on the side of the road at night, take a seat on the hood and wait; you’ll soon see the muddy wet footprints of the little girl heading toward you! We don’t recommend that you do this. With the curves and tight spaces on Elbow Road, parking there at night is just asking for trouble.
Mrs. Woble’s Ghost
One of the ghosts reportedly seen on Elbow Road in Virginia Beach is that of an old lady referred to as Mrs. Woble. Mrs. Woble once lived on Elbow Road next to one of the sharp curves. While she didn’t die on the road or because of the road, it’s said that she was brutally murdered.
While the dead woman’s body was never found, the police came looking for her after there was a report she was missing, or so the story goes. What they found was a broken back door and cold food on the table. When they went upstairs to look for the woman, they came across a bloody mess – it looked as though someone had been brutally massacred up there, but there was no body. There was blood everywhere – enough that it wasn’t likely Mrs. Woble could have survived.
Mrs. Woble is sometimes spotted walking along the side of the road. Locals are known to warn people not to stop if they see a blood-spattered woman walking along the side of the road – it’s just Mrs. Woble looking for her home. And, in case you didn’t notice – Woble is Elbow backward! That alone may be enough to make some people think this entire story is a hoax.
Some folks believe that it is her ghostly body seen walking on the side of the road that causes some of the horrific accidents. However, the road is definitely dangerous even without ghosts strolling around at night. Seeing someone covered in blood walking along the side of the road should be cause to stop, or at least call 9-1-1.
Her home, of course, is long gone – it was torn down (if it ever really existed in the first place). Even so, there are reports of lights flashing, as though being turned on and off, in the spot where her home once stood. Perhaps it’s a trick of the car lights reflecting off of something on the side of the road that appears to look like flickering house lights, or maybe it’s a phantom house waiting for its bruised and bloody owner to find her way back home.
Are There Really Ghost on Elbow Road?
Even though there are lots of online reports about both of these ghosts, there are some folks that think these tales are made up. One ghost hunter with a relative on Elbow Road reported in a forum that there are absolutely no ghosts on that stretch of the road. They included that there was most assuredly no Mrs. Woble. Then again, the person posting spelled the name wrong, which could be why they were unable to find proof of the woman’s existence.
As far as the little girl goes, urban legends are called urban legends for a reason – they are most often made up stories that are meant to keep people from doing silly things, such as flashing their lights at other drivers or microwave drying their dogs. The main requirement of an urban legend is that it is a chilling story and that when someone tells the story that they swear they “know someone who did it.”
Whether or not there are ghosts haunting Elbow Road, the deaths of loved ones haunt the people who have lost family members in tragic accidents along this stretch of road. Creating explanations for the strange things people see, from flashing lights to ghostly footprints, is what people do to help them cope with the unexplained – including how one section of road can be so dangerous.
Sources:
https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/chesapeake/crash-closes-elbow-rd-in-chesapeake/
https://www.pilotonline.com/news/transportation/article_f9753c07-cba1-51e4-8ac2-bfede7ca6893.html
https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachFD/photos/a.179386879729/10154544246529730
https://neptuneghosts.com/top-10-haunted-places-in-virginia-beach/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sponsor-story/va-beach/2018/10/22/haunted-history-alive-and-well-virginia-beach/1731748002/
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/virginia/articles/haunted-places-virginia-beach/
https://www.virginiabeach.com/article/virginia-beach-haunted-houses-and-spooky-haunts
http://www.city-data.com/forum/hampton-roads-area/396199-haunted-vriginia-3.html
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150126-how-to-create-an-urban-legend