NORFOLK, Va. — Tuesday was a wet one, and as sea levels rise, the risk of flooding won’t be evaporating any time soon.
For the residents of Chesterfield Heights in Norfolk, the risk of rising water is often on their minds. That's because the historic neighborhood's seen flooding in the past that's made roads completely impassible.
Recently they saw changes including berms, drainage and permeable bricks. It was part of a $112 million flood mitigation project, the Ohio Creek Watershed Project, that was completed last June.
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Some residents told News 3 the project's given them comfort while moving into the area.
"It was a big concern, but as far as what the realtor said, everything has improved within the past few years, and so our experience here has been good," said Akasha Evelyn of Norfolk.
One homeowner, on the other hand, said they're not impressed after the latest storm left their basement wet.
"We do see that some of these interventions don't prohibit flooding necessarily, they just make the impacts less bad," explained Mary Carson-Stiff, Wetlands Watch executive director.
Carson-Stiff breaks down which areas see the most issues:
"Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and parts of Chesapeake experience lots of flooding during these events," said Carson-Stiff. "This is mostly because the infrastructure is older."
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That's why she said projects often address infrastructure and carefully plan for rare events of extreme rainfall—something we might be seeing more of.
"The frequency that this is occurring is increasing," said Carson-Stiff. "We're seeing far more sunny-day flooding days, or nuisance flooding days, than we ever have in the past."
She added that Hampton Roads is making big strides as local, state and federal efforts move forward, but there's always more work to be done.
"We're doing a lot, there's so many actors who are working together in this space, but we could be doing more," said Carson-Stiff. "And the biggest problem we have is financing."
Last year, cities in Hampton Roads secured some funding to address flooding.
FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program gave Virginia Beach $25 million to fight flooding for resiliency efforts and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management granted the city of Hampton more than $13 million for improvements in a portion of Hampton's North Armistead Avenue.
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This January, ODU got $700,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the City of Norfolk's Office of Resilience and Division of Environmental Stormwater Management and ODU's Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience for a community flood mitigation project. It's a two-year project that started this month.
It's part of a larger $10.8 million NFWF NCRF grant focused on enhancing coastal resilience in Hampton Roads.
