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Virginia Beach Public Works to address flooding concerns

Posted at 3:56 PM, Feb 13, 2019
and last updated 2019-02-13 17:25:05-05

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - It's a downsize for Virginia Wasserberg and her family.

“We went from 1800 square feet to approximately 1400 square feet,” Wasserberg explained.

She said they were forced out of their Virginia Beach home after - like most of her Windsor Woods neighbors - the house was left in shambles when Hurricane Matthew seeped through the floors and walls in 2016.

“That’s difficult. It’s a hard process to go through,” she said.  

They initially spent thousands of dollars to rebuild and moved back in, but “we had to sell because of the rising cost of flood insurance compared to the 15-year plan for flood mitigation was just really too much for our family to afford.”

Wednesday evening, the city’s Public Works Department will talk with people about one of the small projects included in that plan.

Related: City of Hampton, Chesapeake Bay Foundation to spend week addressing chronic flooding

They said it will lead to construction of a new stormwater drain along Club House Road and Rosemont Road.

“We’ve got some small pipes, they don’t have the capacity,” Stormwater Engineering Program Manager Mike Mundy said. “The area floods from stormwater and also from tidal.”

The project will include adding pipes for flood water.

“We want to take a pipe, capture the water, drain it over to the golf course and let it drain into the system so it can continue draining into the London Bridge system,” Mundy explained.

There are several projects in the works for Windsor Woods, Princess Anne Plaza and the Lakes neighborhoods.

Wasserberg believes the project is the “light at the end of the tunnel."

“This project is the small ball that’s gonna get rolling,” she told News 3.

Wasserberg admitted she doesn’t plan to move back into the flood prone area right now, but she's continuing to fight for the folks still there.

“We have to continue to position our city council and our city staff to fund all the other projects,” she said.

Related: Virginia Beach restaurant raising its structure to prevent future flood damage

Wednesday’s meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Bow Creek Recreation Center.

It’s open to the public.