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lunar_unit t1_j89otni wrote

Spooky reminder of when Shockoe flooded because the flood wall was closed and the pumps failed causing the Shockoe bowl to fill with 9ft of water.

Edit:. Here's an account of the flooding on that day, and how/why it happened:

https://richmond.com/news/local/why-richmond-why-officials-say-floodwall-didnt-fail-during-gaston-in-2004/article_7bcd6202-7ae8-5116-891b-a36c86df4db4.html

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Danger-Moose t1_j89y8nu wrote

And the pumps failed because the generators for the pumps were... Flooded. It's similar to how so many complexes had generators in flooded basements in Sandy up north.

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Jsprdn t1_j8agta0 wrote

I lived in NYC then and had to deliver emergency generators to Manhattan hospitals during that shitstorm. Problem was their generators were up on the roof but the fuel tanks were in the basements..

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Ese_Americano t1_j8a6sd5 wrote

Would the fix be to have generators above the future-potential floodwaters, or, generators at multiple levels of a pump house?

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dreww4546 t1_j8an7wu wrote

The problem wasn't that generators failed, it was that this has been a flood zone since richmonds first days as a city.

Rain came down at an unprecedented rate during gaston and there was no where for the water to drain too.

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Ese_Americano t1_j8bpz1k wrote

Got it. Any way you can you answer my question?

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dreww4546 t1_j8bubeo wrote

After Gaston, the army Corp of engineers pretty much said there is no pump system that would be able to manage a foot of rain being funneled down into the bottom in an hour. But politics being what they are more money was spent

I really don't know what is happening in the pic. I just wanted to chime in on Gaston flooding.

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Ese_Americano t1_j8fgwh4 wrote

Thank you for this response. I greatly appreciate it! Great insight. RVA is as RVA DOES!

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stayintall t1_j8ao574 wrote

I lived across from what was then Tiki Bobs and remember Gaston vividly. I worked up around 14th and was walking back to 18th right as the farmers market was starting to flood. Was probably about 6” high at that point. A couple of us got a few sixers and rode out the storm from 18th and Franklin and at one point saw an 18 wheeler floating down 17th. The water rose all the way up to 18th. We rescued a dog off the top of a car somewhere in there as well. Was a wild time.

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trlblaze t1_j8ciyd8 wrote

I rode that storm out on the 4th floor of my friend's apartment at 21st and Cary. Water was rising up to the driver's windows of cars parked down by 18th and I vividly remember the bottoms up dumpster floating down the street.

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RCBilldoz t1_j8cwg0t wrote

The flood wall was not closed. We got 10 inches of rain in less than 6 hours. Our civil war era drainage didn’t help.

It was not riverine flooding, there was no water coming down river. It takes about 24-30 hours to close. There was no prediction of river flooding with Gaston.

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lunar_unit t1_j8dhmiq wrote

You're right. Edited my comment and added a link to how it all went down.

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kneel_yung t1_j8d8zhq wrote

Gaston flooded because shockoe creek flooded due to the rain.

The flood wall is not designed to protect richmond from shockoe creek flooding, only from the river. Shockoe creek is on the other side of the flood wall. So the flood wall couldn't have done anything in that situation. In fact its mere existence made it worse because it trapped all the water from trying to get into the river and instead held it in shockoe.

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lunar_unit t1_j8ddbye wrote

Gillies creek is two miles from shockoe, way over in Fulton, flowing to the river from Eastern Henrico. It had nothing to do with flooding in Shockoe. Over 12" of heavy rain in 8 hours is what caused the flooding.

Here's an account of how it went down:

https://richmond.com/news/local/why-richmond-why-officials-say-floodwall-didnt-fail-during-gaston-in-2004/article_7bcd6202-7ae8-5116-891b-a36c86df4db4.html

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kneel_yung t1_j8dl6k8 wrote

My b I meant shockoe creek. There's like 6 creeks right there.

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