The lack of significant South River flood damage in Waynesboro from Hurricane Helene is a function of smart mitigation work by government at the local, state and federal levels over a period of 40 years.
Damage from the Election Day flood of 1985 totaled $9 million (inflation-adjusted, 2024 dollars), and prompted the beginning of work at the local level to do something to limit the damages from flood events that seemed to come along every few years.
Before the 1985 flood, on that point, there had been the mid-summer 1972 flooding associated with Hurricane Agnes, and the 1969 flooding from Hurricane Camille that did substantially more damage over the mountain in Nelson County.
And we’d get more in the years following 1985 – two significant flood events in 1996, a third caused by a tropical storm in 2003, minor flooding in 2011 and 2018.
A review of historical records of South River crests from the National Water Prediction Service would put the flooding that we saw from Helene ninth on the city’s all-time list.
ICYMI: Helene
- Virginia Tech students, employees help with Helene cleanup in Giles County
- ‘We’re hurting’: Southwest Virginia farms suffer $125M in losses due to Helene
- More than 200 landslides documented by U.S. Geological Survey team in three states
- Virginia: Some state parks, natural area preserves closed due to damage from Helene
- Response to hurricanes could radically change with climate deniers in the White House
- Gov. Youngkin visits Southwest Virginia to assess damage from Helene
The impact of the South River spilling its banks during Helene was largely confined to a basements in scattered residential structures and the ground floor of a business on East Main Street.
There was scattered damage to structures associated wind gusts as Helene passed through the area, including one home that sustained significant damage from a downed tree.
But in terms of water, there were several city streets that had to be closed because of overspill, but little else.
“This is the first time we really tested the river significantly since the Rife-Loth Dam came out, and that’s definitely had some effect on a positive way,” said Gary Critzer, the director of emergency management in the Waynesboro city-government organization.
The Rife-Loth Dam dated back to the 1880s, and the original log dam was replaced after a 1907 flood with a new stone and concrete structure.
That one was removed in 2011, as the homeowners association that owned it decided against continuing to sink money into increasingly frequent repairs.
That was a public-private project, with the homeowners association getting some help from federal grants to pay for the removal.
Another local-federal partnership bought and removed several homes in the flood-prone Club Court area in the 1990s, which Critzer noted had the added benefit of providing green space for water to push out during overspill events.
Another locally-directed effort by the city focused on improvements to the stormwater system, which would often overflow during heavy-rain events and contribute to problems with river flooding.
Government doesn’t get a lot of credit when it does the right thing.
That’s particularly the case when the right thing takes decades to come to fruition.
You don’t declare victory when something doesn’t happen, like, when a flood isn’t as bad as it would have been if you hadn’t taken the steps necessary to limit its impact.
The city doesn’t have a PR person, so consider this the “mission accomplished” banner.
I tried to get Critzer to take a victory lap, but he was having none of it.
As far as he would go was: “I do think the money has been well-spent.”
Share
Chris Graham
