The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
The city is slowly sinking and the water around it is slowly rising, leaving Norfolk with more frequent and more severe flooding throughout its neighborhoods.
It's a problem that is going to take some serious money - and serious effort - to solve.
Norfolk officials on Wednesday introduced consultants who will work for the next 18 months on a citywide plan to address chronic tidal flooding. When the work is done, they hope to have weighed the costs of multiple projects and prioritized areas where they think improvements will help the most.
"It's a daunting task," Mayor Paul Fraim said. "But we have to try to come to terms with it."
Eventually, he and others said, the city may have to designate some areas as "retreat" zones, where no amount of money or work will be able to beat back nature.
Norfolk spends $6 million a year on flood mitigation projects ranging from cleaning out storm drains near Haven Creek to installing new bulkheads in Winona and extending outfall pipes in Willoughby.
But that work, said Kristen Lentz, the acting director of Public Works, is mostly small improvements and maintenance to a drainage system that is more than 60 years old and built to handle smaller storms.
The city's relative sea level change is the worst of any major city on the East Coast, according to statistics Lentz presented Wednesday night. Across the country, only a handful of Gulf cities such as New Orleans and Corpus Christi, Texas, are worse.
"We need a program that's proactive and strategic," she told the council. "Looking at it citywide is the smartest thing to do."
Once the city has designated priorities, it will have to lobby Congress for money, officials said.
Vice Mayor Anthony L. Burfoot said he worried that combined with requests for funding for high-speed rail, light rail and a third crossing to the Peninsula, asking for flood mitigation money might overwhelm the government.
That, officials said, will need to be worked out in upcoming months.
By January, Furgo Consultants, an international flood management company, will present to council the findings of a coastal flooding study, as well as a closer look at three problem areas - the Hague, Spartan Village, and Pretty Lake.
By the end of 2011, officials hope to have a citywide prioritized list that they can begin the funding process for in 2012.
Cheryl Oliver and Stuart Schwartz, neighbors who live on the Hague, both own homes that have flooded repeatedly. They attended the meeting together and nodded as officials spoke about lobbying Congress.
"It's not if it's going to flood again - it's when," said Oliver, whose 1894 home had nearly a foot of water through its first floor after November's nor'easter.
Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com
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Raise the homes
Pick an altitude above sea level and give EVERY homeowner a deadline several years in the future to elevate their home's floor to that level to be eligible for flood insurance. Any property (like laundry equipment or sporting goods) left in ground level areas like a garage or the space between pilings shouldn't be covered by flood insurance if the equipment was below the designated insurable altitude.
Make some low interest rate loans available for the costs of jacking up the houses. If a flood occurs during the "grace period" for elevating the homes any assistance should be on a strict one time basis.
Where structures MUST be below the designated flood level the portions of the buildings below the flood level should be built or retrofitted with water tolerant materials like concrete block, Plans should be mandated for moving sensitive contents like upholstered furniture and appliances to higher floors.
How is the gov't going to
How is the gov't going to stop nature? Build a huge levee? I'm sorry her house floods, but perhaps it's time to elevate it. Probably shouldn't totally fight nature, probably should adapt (by retreating further inland.)
Norfolk Sinking?
Flooding does happen in Norfolk regularly. Did anyone think about that when they planned "light rail" to downtown Norfolk? What happens to those who take the train to work and then flooding happens along the line? Guess you're stuck at work!
Flooding and light rail
Anonymous: Flooding was taken into account when the rail was built. City commission actually had their thinking caps on. You may not like the rail system, but it could just be that this will be a life saver in the future. Try it, you might like it.
How about this?
Flood water...no problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUJ43L35E7c
i'm going to venture a guess and say
the same thing that happens to people who drive their cars to work in flooding.
Except now, if LRT ridership is enough, less morons will try to drive their 1999 Kia through a 7 ft deep puddle, thus freeing up police and tow truck drivers to respond to actual emergencies during storms.
Uh you didn't know about the
Uh you didn't know about the inflatable pontoons under the light rail cars?
RE: DUTCH CONSULTANTS
“The Corps of Engineers, but they are the same folks who brought us the levees that broke in New Orleans during Katrina.”
The Corps of Engineers were sacrificed, as more of the blame should be placed on local government (city, state) and big business interest allowing for the removal and erosion if natural barriers, i.e. wet lands, marshland, small islands, sand dunes, etc. all of which contribute to the protection of the “mainland”.
Concerning the levee surrounding New Orleans, where were the City inspectors and Council? To say it is not our problem it is the government when an identified problem exist, is “passing the buck.”
In addition, Congress funds the Corps, was\is the Corps fully funded to execute their requirements and responsibility?
I would call it total lack of interest
That project was started in 1965 and still wasn't done in 2005. It just was total lack of local interest in getting it done and not an engineering problem. All projects have problems, but going from a 13 year plan to 40 years and still not complete just shows no one cared.
I was there, and involved.
I was a volunteer for the Ecology Center of New Orleans in 1969, and was assigned to study the Corps of Engineers Hurricane Protection Plan. (I was a Junior in the Marine Biology curriculum at Nicholls University at the time and the closest thing the Ecology Center had to a scientist, everyone else was pre-law or poly-sci) After 3 months study, I recommended that we not oppose the plan, but the board voted to oppose it anyway, and I left the EC staff over it. They joined with other Environmental groups to form the Oyster Shell Alliance, which sued repeatedly to block the project until inflation raised to cost above the appropriation and the project was never completed.
A patchwork of COE, City and private levees was the alternative, and proved to be inadequate to Katrina.
The decision to oppose the plan for political reasons in spite of the science supporting it was what soured me on organized environmentalism, after which I worked on environmental issues through hunting and fishing organizations instead of political.