A changing climate leads to worsening flood risks across Virginia

VIRGINIA, Va. (WWBT) - From Central Texas to Central Virginia, we’ve been following the power and destructiveness of flood water.

Now, experts claim major flooding events aren’t as rare as they used to be.

It’s easy to think about future flood risk as a far-off problem, but in Virginia many people, like in Petersburg or Prince George County, have already lived through it

To understand the risk of floods Richmond faces, you only need to look back two decades.

Nearly 21 years ago, on Aug. 30, 2004, the remnants of Hurricane Gaston stalled over the Richmond area and killed nine people.

The storm caused more than $130 million in damage and put Shockoe Bottom underneath muddy water.

Since then, the city has made infrastructure improvements, especially in Shockoe Bottom, but experts said what was once considered “unprecedented” may no longer be the case.

Virginia, like most of the country, is facing intense storms fueled by a warming climate.

“With a warmer climate, storms are able to hold more water and drop more water,” Jenny Brennan, climate analyst, said. “Inundating homes and businesses also just overwhelming outdated infrastructure that wasn’t built to handle this volume of rain.”

Rapid development of housing and businesses is another factor making it worse.

“We are also experiencing one of the higher growth rates in the country. And as a result of that, we’re seeing a lot of natural terrain get turned into impervious surface like sidewalks and roads and rooftops, and none of those surfaces have the ability to absorb water,” Morgan Butler, Senior Attorney at SELC, said.

It means the water has nowhere to go, but that doesn’t mean Richmond isn’t working ahead to prevent this.

“Richmond has the right strategies, the right policies in place in terms of trying to preserve the green infrastructure. It’s really the implementation now where we need the city to step up,” Butler said.

Despite moving in the right direction, there are two things holding resilience projects back: funding and rethinking how we plan for risk.

Cutbacks at the federal level are making it harder for any state to plan future projects, but one expert said we need to rethink the ‘100 year flood’ before planning ahead.

“Because of climate change, that 100 year standard is not going to be adequate for the future,” Tom Jacobson, VCU professor, said. “That’s why horrible examples, right? Tend to put funding for things that are viewed as, ‘oh it’s a long-term issue’ move it up.”

It’s an issue that can’t leave our minds when the water recedes.

“These events...flooding, they come to the front of people’s minds after you have a disaster like the unfortunate one we have in Texas. But this is an issue that we need local, state, federal government to keep their attention on constantly. If we’re going to be able to make progress,” Butler said.