Category Archives: Flooding

A Small Victory – So Far – for Common Sense and Flood Mitigation in Virginia Beach

Posted on September 1, 2023 by | 33 comments

The central Great Neck Corridor drainage system Virginia Beach

by James C. Sherlock

Sometimes things work. Perhaps they will this time.

There was a time in Virginia Beach when a partnership between a developer and a church to build new houses would have breezed through the Planning Commission and the City Council.

That kind of open season on clearing and building on Virginia Beach’s very low-lying land brought with it lots of problems, including flooding.

The citizens of Virginia Beach, tired of flooding in every heavy rain and even under a clear sky with a full moon, a couple of years ago passed a very large property tax increase on themselves to create a huge pot of money to deal with it.

One of the natural flood control systems already in place is a series of contiguous lakes along Great Neck Road in the eastern part of the city. They handle runoff from that major corridor. That system flows into the Lynnhaven River and the Chesapeake Bay.

To that place comes a developer and a local church with a proposal. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Environment, Flooding, Governance, Land use & Development, Water-waste water

Along the Back Roads –the Rise and Demise of a Town

Posted on June 13, 2023 by | 56 comments

Let’s take a break from DEI; the shortcomings of UVa, W&M and the rest of higher education; and all the other issues that get us riled up.

Virginia is an interesting state to travel and see.

I have always liked to travel the back roads.  It is slower than the interstates and the primary highways, but these byways can be so much more interesting.

I don’t know if this is true of other states, but throughout the countryside of Virginia there are a lot of official markers showing place names, but seemingly there is nothing there. Sometimes the markers appear on the state highway map distributed by the Virginia Department of Transportation; sometimes, not. These “named places” are not random and, if one is willing to dig a little, there is often a story behind them. They were used to designate distinct places in rural Virginia that nearby residents could use as a reference point and sometimes as a place to gather. The reference point could be a building, intersection, store, etc. Eventually, the names were used to denote the surrounding community and often are in use today. Continue reading →

56 Comments

Posted in Flooding, Uncategorized, Virginia history

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Federal Flood Insurance Needs to Cover Its Costs

Posted on June 6, 2023 by | 21 comments

Flooded street in Norfolk during Hurricane Sandy

by James C. Sherlock

Virginia is suing FEMA over its new risk rating methodology for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Virginia’s suit says that the new methodology:

doesn’t recognize many mitigation efforts, nor does it clearly explain how rates are calculated based on mitigation efforts. This means that (Virginia’s) mitigation efforts don’t result in lower premiums for policyholders.

The suit does not state that the rates are not high enough. Which they are not.

  • The costs of repair and rebuilding have soared;
  • Sea level rise combined with subsidence is both measured and forecast to increase flood hazards on Virginia’s coasts.

The rest of the country does not “owe” a discount on flood insurance to those of us that choose to live in flood-prone areas.

Rate payers need to cover the costs of the NFIP, including building a reserve – like a real insurance program. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Flooding, Insurance

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New Offshore Wind Power Project Proposed to Come Ashore in a Virginia Beach Flood Zone

Posted on May 30, 2023 by | 66 comments

by James C. Sherlock

There is a dominant engineering problem in bringing offshore wind-generated electricity ashore in Virginia Beach. Flooding and water tables very close to the surface are the twin reasons there are few basements in Virginia Beach. And those that have them regret it.

The 2020 Virginia Beach FEMA Flood Hazard Map is 56MB. It is too big to display here. So don’t try downloading it on a phone. But take a look. It is important to the discussion.

Camp Pendleton and Sandbridge are Virginia Beach shore landing spots proposed for offshore wind electricity generated by two different fields. Both will have similar infrastructure pictured below.

courtesy https://coastalvawind.com/about-offshore-wind/delivering-wind-power.aspx

Below is the SCC-approved transmission line route from Camp Pendleton for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. The map does not show flood hazard zones.

I am not sure any public version of it ever did. Continue reading →

66 Comments

Posted in Energy, Flooding

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McKinsey & Company Has You Covered

Posted on January 12, 2023 by | 50 comments

Whatever this is supposed to mean. Courtesy, McKinsey & Company

by James C.  Sherlock

Ever feel not only disconnected from, but ignored by central planners?

Do you run a shoe store in Sterling or work for a hospital in Richmond? Use natural gas in your home or work?  Teach in a public school in Wise County? Drive a gas-or diesel-powered vehicle?

In other words, do you do what people do to make the economy run and feed their families? Live your life using carbon-based energy, as does the entire economy?

Central planners have chosen your future. Nothing big, just the entire United states economy.

They acknowledge “headwinds” in that future. Challenges they call “weather fronts.” What McKinsey, the guru of net zero, calls a “devilish duality” that it claims has put “executives” on the spot.

They offer strategies to deal with them:

As net zero has become an organizing principle for business, executives are on the spot to lay out credibly how they will deliver a transition to net zero while building and reinforcing resilience against the certain volatility of ongoing economic and political shocks.

Dominion Energy is all in.  But questions arise: Continue reading →

50 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Culture wars, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Flooding, Governance, Infrastructure

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Sinking the Newest Sea Level Rise Exaggerations

Posted on September 14, 2022 by | 62 comments

NOAA chart of relative sea level rise at Sewell’s Point in Norfolk, showing a rate of 1.56 feet in rise per century, far lower than alarmist modelers project.

by Steve Haner

So, let me get this straight.  If we willingly keep paying the carbon tax on our electric bills, then thousands of parcels of prime Virginia waterfront won’t slip beneath the waves? Was that the point of these parallel prophecies of doom in the September 12 Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury? Continue reading →

62 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Flooding, Infrastructure, Resilience

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The Real and Present Threat of Flooding in Virginia Requires Coordinated Action

Posted on February 20, 2022 by | 40 comments

2021 FEMA flood map Hampton Roads

by James C. Sherlock

An editorial in The Virginian-Pilot this morning is titled, “A worrisome, watery future,” and is built around an update on flooding from NOAA.

It is a grave situation.

NOAA projects one foot of combined sea level rise and subsidence here in Hampton Roads by 2050. The adjacent map has not been updated to the new assessment. One more foot of water will turn most of the map orange and red – submerged and very submerged.

For larger scale perspective, see here.  For a thumbnail of a USACE storm risk management study of the City of Norfolk see here.

The Pilot editorial writer, approaching his conclusion, wanted to say something about green initiatives. So he did. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and such.

You can be for or against RGGI, but you cannot reasonably contend that it will stop flooding in Hampton Roads. The editorial is an example of green absolutism. That is one of the philosophies that has blocked state action on multi-jurisdictional flooding.

But it isn’t the only one. Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Defense and National Security, Flooding

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Youngkin Backs Virginia Senate, House Bills that Offer Real Coastal Flood Protection

Posted on January 25, 2022 by | 13 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Some of us, led by then-Delegate Jason Miyares, have been trying for years to establish a state authority that finally can bring regional storm surge protections to Virginia.

Now we have a chance. For whatever reasons, we could never get a governor behind the proposal.

Gov. Youngkin has stepped up and supported HB 847 (Delegate Rob Bloxom, R-Accomack, and SB 569, Senator Jen Kiggans, D-Virginia Beach).

We now have a chance. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Flooding

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A Regulatory Path to End the RGGI Carbon Tax

Posted on January 18, 2022 by | 22 comments

The states currently in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative compact.

by Steve Haner

First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) will proceed to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax compact by the same route Virginia entered it: he will push to repeal the underlying regulation.

As with much else in his promised “Day One” agenda, it will actually take time. What he gave Virginia on Day One was an executive order outlining the coming steps, which still must follow the letter of Virginia’s administrative process rules. Regulations are created, amended and repealed routinely.

His administration will also notify the RGGI organization of Virginia’s intent to withdraw, a step contemplated and allowed under the governing memorandum of understanding.

It was a vote of the Air Pollution Control Board, citing authority over airborne carbon dioxide emissions, that implemented the cap and trade rules that require electric power producers to buy carbon allowances. That allowance cost is then passed on to power customers, in the case of Dominion Energy Virginia customers, directly on every month’s bill. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Flooding, Regulations and Government Oversight, Taxes

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Schools, Floods, Roads, Monuments, Gambling, Oh My!

Posted on November 6, 2021 by | 17 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Local referenda, while important locally, are often overlooked in the media coverage of elections. However, the results of those elections may provide some insight into the mood of the electorate, at least in some areas of the state. Following is a summary of the results of the local referenda on the ballot last Tuesday.

Localities cannot hold a referendum unless authorized or required by state law. The most common referendum question has to do with the issuance of general obligation bonds. The state constitution governs when a referendum is required. Generally speaking, a county cannot issue general obligation bonds unless approved by the voters in a referendum. In contrast, cities and towns are not required to have a referendum. However, some cities have charter provisions restricting how much general obligation debt they can issue. Virginia Beach and Danville, the two cities that held bond referenda this year, fall into this category.

In addition, referenda are allowed or required on a variety of policy questions.  This year there were referenda on the levying of additional sales tax, establishment of gambling enterprises, and replacement or relocation of monuments. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Elections, Environment, Flooding, Gambling

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The Economics of Flood Control in Virginia

Posted on September 15, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Hampton Roads base flood – 1% annual risk

by James C. Sherlock

We have work to do, and need to do it quickly and well.

  • If we want to get storm defenses built before major storm damage rather than after; and
  • if we want the federal government to pay 65% of the costs.

Let’s assume we do.

The “Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning Framework” appears to be heading in a direction that may miss important pieces of any benefit/cost assessment. And those assessments drive federal interest.

The assumption in Framework going forward appears to be that the value of flood protection is in loss avoidance. Exclusively. 

Indeed, all of the work that I can find in flooding assessments Virginia is put towards the goal of understanding the costs of such losses.

Not sufficient, but fixable. Continue reading →

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Posted in Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Flooding, General Assembly, Uncategorized

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Louisiana Shows How Flood Control Can Work at Massive Scale

Posted on September 13, 2021 by | 10 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Louisiana has half the population of Virginia. Virginia is ranked the 18th richest state in per capita income, Louisiana 48th.

So, why has Louisiana been so phenomenally successful in flood control efforts since Katrina while Virginia writes its own framework for action that it is too expensive here?

Primarily because Louisiana figured out after Katrina that:

  1. the feds simultaneously have all the flood control resources — money, expertise, experience, scale — that states do not have, and both write the regulations and regulate flood control.
  2. the state had to organize both the state and local governments to deal with the federal government with a single voice.

The new agency charged with that monumental and immediate task, while quickly and iteratively creating itself, was the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) of Louisiana.

There is much for Virginians to know about and learn from Louisiana’s success. You will see that the Bayou State has way bigger flooding problems to solve than does Virginia.

Their success must be a model for us.

Yet the Commonwealth seems hell bent on ignoring the methods that enabled that success. Our leaders also deny that engineered defenses, “castles,” are even affordable as part of the solution set in Virginia. Each idea is both ill considered and dangerous.

I will describe briefly how Louisiana has done its part in this. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Flooding, General Assembly, Governance

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The Costliest Floods in Interior Virginia Since 1969

Posted on September 10, 2021 by | 15 comments

Car in tree in Nelson County after Camille

by James C. Sherlock

I offer this survey of Virginia’s biggest interior floods since 1969, mostly courtesy of the National Weather Service, as equal time for my reporting on coastal flooding in Virginia.

The interior is where the most deaths have occurred in Virginia floods, not the coast.

The deaths reach those levels in interior Virginia through a combination of:

  • topography, especially where rain runs off the mountains,
  • sometimes relatively short notice alerts compared to coastal weather forecasting, and
  • the historic practice of building in hollars in the mountains and bottom lands adjacent to rivers.

Rainwater surging down mountains into rivers can be catastrophic at every point in its flow.

This will provide both a photo remembrance and a brief written record of each of those four storms. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Flooding

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Virginia’s Coast and Flood Control – The Past Is Prologue

Posted on September 10, 2021 by | 27 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Granby Street Norfolk after Great Hurricane of 1933

So how do we picture how bad a hurricane or Nor’easter could be along Virginia’s coast? What might it look like?

Won’t the Outer Banks catch the worst of any hurricane and break it up?

Well, no.

Consider some stunning historical examples. Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in Flooding

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Flood Control — Fatal flaws in Virginia’s Approach

Posted on September 9, 2021 by | 15 comments

Hampton Roads Federal Installations

by James C. Sherlock

It is hurricane season, if you had not noticed.

This is the first of a multi-part series of articles on flood control in Virginia.

This first one will provide a brief overview of where we stand in flood control planning and construction in the Commonwealth with an emphasis on Hampton Roads.

The next three will discuss the federal role, the Commonwealth role and the regional/local roles in more depth.

The development of a Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan is the responsibility of the Commonwealth’s Chief Resilience Officer, the Secretary of Natural Resources. So far, it looks like it.

The current path the Commonwealth has chosen has fatal flaws.  A discussion of those flaws follows.

First some background. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Flooding, Governance

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