Hurricane Harvey response in Houston, Texas (Photo by U.S. Army 1st Lt. Zachary West [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston with 50-plus inches of rain over five days.
Could a similar situation happen in Richmond, and would we be ready?
Harvey slammed into the Texas coast a Category 4 hurricane, then sat. And sat. And sat, trapped by blocking weather systems and with minimal steering currents to lift or push it away.
It’s on the move now, and its remnants will likely contribute to rain from a front expected to cross through the metro region on Friday and Saturday, according to Jerry Stenger, director of the climatology office at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Harvey’s remnants should move west of the Alleghenies.
No flooding is expected here.
While a storm like Harvey could stall out over us at some point, that scenario is extremely unlikely, according to Jeff Orrock, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Wakefield.
“There is always the potential such a system could stall to our south over [North Carolina] or move slowly, locking us into a few days of heavy rain resulting in extreme flooding,” Orrock says. “It would be incredibly rare, but the rarity of these extreme events is [what] makes them so catastrophic and nearly impossible to prepare for.”
But hurricanes and tropical storms have been regular visitors to Richmond. The Virginia Department of Emergency Preparedness has compiled a succinct summary of historic storms to strike the state.
One of the worst occurred in 1969, Hurricane Camille. It first assaulted the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane and then tracked inland, a tropical depression by the time it reached the commonwealth. That storm tapped moisture from the Gulf Stream, according to the Department of Emergency Preparedness, then doused the mountains with 31 inches of rain over 12 hours. Flash floods and mudslides killed 153, and the resulting flood “cut off all communication between Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley.”
"History has taught us [that] these tropical cyclone remnants shouldn’t be written off after they come far inland and lose strength,” says Stenger. “They still possess the potential to have a great effect upon Virginia, due largely to the substantial amount of moisture they can move. Interacting with rainfall-producing mechanisms already in place, these can, under the right, or wrong, conditions, enhance precipitation to catastrophic proportions.”
Richmond also was inundated and sustained major flooding three years later, in June 1972, with Agnes, a tropical storm. Downtown was closed for several days as utility plants were flooded and only one James River bridge was left standing. There were 16 deaths in Virginia and $222 million in damages.
Hurricane Floyd in 1999 caused extensive flooding in downtown Richmond, especially around Shockoe, partly because its storm surge pushed water up the James River to hit the low-lying area just below the fall line, says Stenger. It brought about 14 inches of rain to the region.
Flash flooding around Richmond from Gaston (Aug. 30, 2004) killed nine and caused $87.4 million in damages to property and vehicles. The fast-moving system dumped about a foot of rain in the Richmond region, and spawned some weak tornadoes, says Stenger.
Other infamous visitors to Richmond include Irene (Aug. 26-28, 2011), which caused $35.8 million in damages; Ernesto (Aug. 29, 2006), which resulted in $118 million in damages and seven deaths; and Isabel (Sept. 18, 2003), which caused some flooding and extensive wind damage in the metro region and overall resulted in $1.9 billion in damages.
"It was quite a mess," says Stenger.
Metro emergency preparedness officials say they draw from their experiences in dealing with “the worst of the worst” storms such as Gaston, then try to magnify the situation and imagine the worst possible storm event they may possibly face.
“You cannot eliminate every single terrible thing that is going to happen, but you can reduce the risk,” says Emily Dillon, emergency management director for Chesterfield County.
One key to mitigating a hazardous situation is individual preparedness, something she says local workers promote via community outreach. Have a family discussion and plan out what you need to do to stay safe, and have water, food, medicine and other necessities on hand.
You can check your property or workplace vulnerability to flooding through the Virginia Flood Risk Information tool. The interactive maps allow you to type in an address and see whether a property is at risk for flooding in a 100-year event (a 1 percent annual chance of a flood occurring at this level) or a 500-year event (a 0.2 percent chance per year of a flood occurring).
You can see a FEMA flood plain map for the city here.
