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[teiresias]

Wow, I don't think Richmond, VA has ever seen anything like this. The city is dealing with the remnants of Gaston, and it apparently strengthened and dumped more rain than they anticipated. Downtown has gotten nearly 14" of rain since the afternoon.

I've talked with a friend of mine twice tonight that lives in the Shockoe Bottom area of the city, one of the lowest lying areas of downtown, and he's trapped in his building, and the water is flowing like rapids down the street at least 10 feet high, because it's flooded two levels of a parking deck, and every car parked on the street is either submerged or floated away!!! There are over 100 people trapped in another building in the area, and people trapped in other building have been calling into the news stations and giving reports!! It's crazy!!

That area always floods, but this is insanity. I'm a little worried for his safety so I hope he'll be alright. His apartment is essentially a third floor apartment since it's above two levels of a parking deck, but there have been reports of a tractor-trailer floating down the street and hitting and toppling a building!!

 

[Archaix]

Holy shit, a friend of mine just moved to Richmond last week. It's really that bad?

 

[Fixed2BeBroken]

it wasnt that bad in bad newz, just lots of rain.

hurricane last year was much worse.

peace

 

[teiresias]

Well, apparently most of Shockoe Bottom is now condemned and two people where killed down there last night. All in all, only three people total died from the events last night which was pretty amazing. Seeing pictures this morning it looks crazy, with cars everywhere that were just taken downstream.

They also showed footage of a city bus full of people that had to be rescued. It was weird seeing footage with all of this water late last night (much lower water since they couldn't get down there until much later) outside clubs and a farmers market that I recognized. My friend also called and said they'd probably condemn his building. He said he'd call me if he needed a ride since by that time it was after midnight, the rain had stopped, and stuff was draining and they were getting people out of the area. He never called though so I'm assuming he found someone (he doesn't own a car, and even if he had it would have been totally ruined because of the water).

It's not just the city either, surrounding counties (mainly southern counties like Chesterfield) are having tons of problems. There was a mandatory evacuation in Chesterfield because of fears of a damn breaking, and in Richmond I-95 was under 5 feet of water at one point and they had to lower firemen from a bridge to rescue some people in cars down there.

Here's a link to one of the local news channels

I can't see the video through my firewall here at work, so maybe there's something interesting there.

 

[Baron Aloha]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5851220/

 

[teiresias]

Article to go along with the picture

 

[Xenon]

Noooooo ooooone rains like Gaston.
No one floods like Gastone.
No one makes homeless white trash like Gaston.

 

[Alex Anderson]

I didn't know you were from around here, teiresias.

I'm at school in Newport News, but heard from my mom and family that the weather and rain were pretty bad back up there. One sister had her basement flooded (nothing compared to the friend of yours' place, eep), and my brother's wifey and little girl took cover in their bathroom when there was a tornado watch in effect for Mechanicsville.

This is the first time I've ever seen Richmond get flooded like that. Craziness. But I guess 10 inches of rain in an hour will do it.

 

[Willco]

Yeah, I'm glad MoCo didn't get hit by this thing. Stupid flash flooding. Go suburbanites!

 

[EdLuva]

Noooooo ooooone rains like Gaston.
No one floods like Gastone.
No one makes homeless white trash like Gaston.

+1 for Beauty and the Beast reference

 

[teiresias]

I'm in Hampton most of the time now, working at Langley for the semester. I'll be back at UVA in January hopefully to finish up my thesis and stuff, but I'm not sure if I'll live in Charlottesville or just commute and try to get a Tues/Thurs. schedule.

Luckily, my friends apartment is in one of those "elevated" buildings where none of the apartments are anywhere near ground level, so he had no personal property damage, it's just the building is condemned. I'm not sure if they just condemned everything in order to have time to actually check all the buildings structurally and they might "uncondemn" some stuff later, or if that entire four block area they condemned is just dead now. In either case, they'll have to let those people back in to get their belongings at some point.

One things for sure, until something is done about drainage in that area I'm not sure you'll see many of these businesses rebuilding down there, and there certainly won't be the influx of new businesses like there has been recently. Everyone was told the new flood wall would prevent flooding, and businesses took the government at their word. MISTAKE.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

I went to Hampton University. Lot's O' ass down there...

Man. This is close. I'd hate to see something like this in DC. Though, I think DC is to 'hilly' for such a thing to happen.

 

[teiresias]

OK, I shouldn't laugh, but this is kind of funny. Maybe it's just because I actually saw it happen on TV live as they were filming this guy riding his bike, but the way they have it in the picture gallery is just humorous:

Oh, and here's a realvideo file from NBC12 that shows some of the happenings down in Shockoe Bottom (I can actually see this one). The water hadn't reached its highest level when they took this video either!

rtsp://mgs.mgnetwork.com/wwbt/video/083104montage.rm

 

[sc0la]

Noooooo ooooone rains like Gaston.
No one floods like Gastone.
No one makes homeless white trash like Gaston.

:lol :lol

 

[Alex Anderson]

I'd like to see the condition of the The Diamond (Richmond Braves' stadium) right about now. If the drainage is so bad that they have to postpone games after a previous night's light showers, who knows how it looks now!