Posted on 08/31/2004 10:51:46 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
RICHMOND — About 20 blocks of downtown Richmond were condemned after the remnants of Tropical Storm Gason battered central Virginia with torrential rain Monday, causing heavy flooding that sent cars floating down streets and trapped people in buildings, officials said.
Five fatalities were confirmed in the region, Gov. Mark R. Warner said today.
"It's a remarkable blessing that more people weren't hurt," Warner told a news conference. "The devastation to a lot of the businesses in Shockoe Bottom is overwhelming."
A brick building of at least two stories had collapsed in the city's historic and low-lying Shockoe Bottom area, and several dozen buildings had extensive water damage after floodwaters reached depths of up to 10 feet, Mayor Rudolph McCollum said.
Floodwaters overran about half of the historic neighborhood, including most of the restaurants in the nightclub district.
Whole walls of buildings splintered, and bricks blew out of others. Cars and even a city bus were tossed about like bathtub toys.
More than 100 cars were waterlogged. Many had simply floated away — some resting atop fire hydrants and other vehicles. City officials said the damage would easily be in the millions of dollars but said it was too early to provide an estimate.
"It's like something you've never seen before," said City Manager Calvin D. Jamison, who had toured the area.
Warner declared a state of emergency Monday night and this morning toured Shockoe Bottom, which remained closed.
The declaration made state resources available and put the Virginia National Guard on standby for possible duty.
"It's been a disaster of major proportions," McCollum said.
More than 61,000 customers of Dominion Virginia Power remained without Power today, most of them in the Richmond area. Utility officials planned to send a mobile generating unit to Shockoe Bottom, where floodwaters had knocked out the substation.
"It looks like rapids outside our building," said Nick Baughan, who was stranded with about 20 other people on the second floor of the Bottoms Up pizza restaurant. "All of our cars have floated away."
The first floor of the restaurant was under 10 to 12 feet of water, Baughan said.
The storm's strong punch took weather forecasters and the public by surprise. Meteorologists had predicted no more than four inches of rain, but the system instead dumped 10 to 14 inches in the Richmond area, snarling traffic and stranding evening commuters on Interstate 95 and other major thoroughfares. A National Weather Service spokesman in Wakefield said as much as 12 inches was recorded in downtown Richmond, with 14 inches to the northeast in King William County.
Keith Lynch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, said tropical storms are typically preceded by clouds. But in Gaston's case, the sun shone until the storm arrived, causing an unusual period of heating that led to more instability and heavy downpours.
Only hours before the system reached the area, the sun was still peeking out and temperatures were in the 80s, with a humidity over 70 percent that made residents sweat as if the mercury had hit the mid- to upper 90s.
State police closed I-95 near downtown Richmond after several feet of water flooded the highway and submerged cars. The interstate had reopened by this morning, but many other commuter highways and streets remained closed.
Downtown, floating cars rammed into buildings, including Bottoms Up. "We had a side shed attached to the building. It's not attached anymore," Baughan said.
Chesterfield County's scuba and rescue team pulled the body of a woman out of a submerged car at 12:54 a.m. today, said county public affairs officer Dave Goode. The victim was identifed as Ngoc Ian Thay Huynh, 29. Goode said Huynh's body was sent to the state medical examiner's office for autopsy. He said county police and firefighters rescued about 40 people overnight.
Richmond police spokeswoman Cynthia Price confirmed today that two people died in storm waters Monday night in Gillie Creek in eastern Richmond, but Price said they don't know the cause of death and no other details were available.
High waters blocked streets and interstates in the Richmond region during rush hour Monday, snarling commutes.
Matthew Marsili, an interior designer, said he left work in Richmond's Fan District at 5:30 p.m. and still wasn't home across town four hours later.
While driving downtown, he said, "all of this water came rushing down the hill all at once. ... It half-submerged a bus in the middle of the intersection that was filled with people and cars started floating down the road."
"There was this white Jeep Cherokee that went floating down the road and crashed into the bar at the bottom of Main Street," he said.
Two shelters were opened in Richmond and one in both Henrico and Chesterfield counties, where emergency officials ordered an evacuation of neighborhoods downstream from the Falling Creek dam.
The evacuation would remain in effect until the water receded, Goode said. He said water was still coming over the top of the dam early today. "This extraordinary rainfall caught us by surprise, but Virginia's emergency response is well underway," Warner said.
The downpour even flooded the state's antiquated Emergency Operations Center, sending emergency officials scrambling to protect computers and other electronic equipment, said Harry Colestock, chief of operations for the state Department of Emergency Management. About 4.5 inches of water covered the floor, and power was briefly disrupted, he said.
Meteorologist Lynch said he received reports of possible tornadoes touching down in James City and Yorktown. Lynch said officials will visit those sites and others today to determine whether twisters did touch down.
James City County Deputy Fire Chief Tal Luton said he saw two tornadoes. The first one hit around 1:40 p.m. near Jamestown, and the second came off the James River about an hour later.
Luton described damage as "fairly light." He said trees were knocked over — a couple onto the roofs of houses — and debris was scattered along the paths of the twisters. A fence around a private tennis court also was flattened.
"If anything surprised me it was that they were small," Luton said of the tornadoes.
Several local colleges were closed or opening late today.
The storm ensured that this would be the wettest summer on record in some localities. Lynch said that as of 5 p.m. Monday, Richmond had received 30.34 inches of rain since June 1, breaking the June-through-August record of 27.57 inches recorded in 1969.
Associated Press Writers Justin Bergman, Terri Nelson and Stephanie Stoughton in Richmond contributed to this report.
Also it is being reported that a search is underway for 10 persons believed swept away in floodwaters when they tried to form a human chain to rescue a trapped person.
ping
Thanks. It's right ugly down there.
So sad that lives have been lost and that this historic area has been damaged. I hope that every effort is made to salvage as many of the historic buildings as possible instead of just bulldozing it all away for more office buildings.
Richmond survived the fire of 1865, it will survive this. I just hope that some of the area's illustrious history can be saved and that no other people are killed or injured.
So much for that humongous Corps of Engineers floodwall that they built to keep the James out of Shockhoe Bottom.
Is the Flood Zone bar still down there? (Or, given the weather, maybe I should ask...was the Flood Zone bar down there before Gaston came through?)
Prayers out to everybody in Richmond, I had no idea it had gotten that bad up there.
}:-)4
Those poor people! I've got friends in Richmond, I sure hope they're ok.
Good grief!!
}:-)4
Is this right along where the holocaust museum is located? I can't imagine I-95 being flooded around that area. Is the flooding over the interstate in that valley just north of the museum?
We go to Richmond every fall for my husband to run the Richmond marathon. We stay at a hotel in that area and eat at those Shockoe restaurants. They're such beautiful buildings, this is a real shame. Prayers for all affected by the flooding.
It seems like just yesterday (two years ago, actually) these poor people were lamenting the terrible drought and praying for rain; such is life.
Now OTOH, if it washed away that lincoln statue put up awhile back, I don't think anybody would miss that....;)
What a mess, Corin, I hope they can get things squared away.
What's it like downtown?
20 condemned blocks in the Bottom is devastating. Back in the mid-80's, it was all old buildings down there but in the last 10 years or so it has become THE night spot in Richmond. Looks like its back to the Fan.
Has anyone down there been over the Nickel Bridge? How's that look?
Be nice now hahaha. Remember it could have been far, far worse, Edwin M. Stanton could have been President. At least Lincoln believed in compassion for the South and the people of Richmond, Stanton probably would have been comfortable with leveling the entire city and erasing it from the face of the earth.
You mean the ones we didn't burn down? ;-)
Most of the buildings in the affected area were already rennovated (or being rennovated) as restaurants or housing. Offhand I can't think of any "Southern heritage" type buildings.
Tredegar Ironworks is a bit further upstream. I don't know how bad they got it, but I think they're okay.
The Whitehouse of the Confederacy is on a higher elevation than the State Capitol. If it was flooded I'd be under about 75 ft. of water where I am right now.
It's okay where I am. But Shockoe Bottom is a mess.
I know exactly where that is. If I'm not mistaken, that's a lot deeper than it appears (by about 10 to 15 feet) Unbelievable.
Just wow.
I haven't seen the Nickel Bridge, but haven't heard any problems. The Willey Bridge was closed for a while. But that was standing water, not the river coming over the bridge.
I went across the Mayo Bridge (Hull Street) about 5:30ish. Drove trough about a foot of standing water (in the truck, wouldn't have tried it in my car).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.