Karen Vasquez was working from home last July—sipping coffee on the couch and scrolling through emails—when a wicked storm rolled in. After the thunder died down, she still heard a “rumbling sound,” so she peeked outside. She was shocked to see her yard and those of two neighbors completely underwater.
“At that point, it registered that the sound I was hearing was rushing water,” says the Arlington homeowner, who lives on the border of the Overlee and Lee Heights neighborhoods.
Vasquez and her husband, Javier, bought their house after it was built in 2012. It had been “bone dry” through snow and rain. But as she started down to the basement that morning, she saw furniture and a full-size refrigerator floating. The Nest camera in their utility room later showed that 5 feet of water had rushed into the basement in two minutes flat.
“I was pretty freaked out,” Vasquez says. “My next thought was, the house is going to be floating in a few minutes.”
After making sure the cats and kids were safe—her daughter, Allie, had been planning to have a sleepover in the basement, but by luck had moved the festivities upstairs—Vasquez hurried outside and found the window wells to the basement were full. The pressure had pushed in the bottom of one window, allowing water to pour inside the house.
The deluge that ripped through the D.C. area that day came seemingly out of nowhere, like an invisible supervillain in a Marvel movie—knocking over backyard fences, sweeping parked cars into the middle of the street and sending manhole covers flying into the air. The county’s drainage system was no match for rainfall that some estimates say would have amounted to 9 inches per hour had the storm continued at the same pace. It poured into basements and rushed down hills, causing millions of dollars in damage and spurring Arlington County to declare a state of emergency.
Though the devastation left her family with $100,000 in uninsured damages, Vasquez believes they were lucky. Friends rushed to their aid, helping to save photos floating in the mess and handmade furniture her late father had carved. Some came with pumps. Another brought a contractor friend who took the drywall out before it could spread mold through the house.
But there were tough losses, including much of Vasquez’s wardrobe, which had been stored in a basement bedroom. She racked up a $5,000 dry cleaning bill, salvaging what she could from the soggy disarray. They said goodbye to family mementos (like their heirloom Little House on the Prairie books), utilities (the hot water heater and HVAC system) and electronics (three televisions and the unmoored beer fridge).
The Vasquezes weren’t the only local residents caught off guard that day. “It was a wall of water,” says George Keating, president of the Waverly Hills Civic Association, whose neighborhood also took a beating. “Once it hits this bowl, it overruns the system. There’s no overland relief because it’s developed land. No one envisioned the rainfall we are having now.”
Like Keating, many now see the storm as nature’s wake-up call that Arlington’s topography, density and development have conspired to leave certain areas prone to repeated flood damage. Add to that more-intense weather events, where the rain falls so fast that the current stormwater system and the ground can’t absorb it, sending overflow into homes and yards.
Since the flash flood of July 8, 2019, citizens have been lining up to give county officials an earful.
“Our flood management system is overwhelmed and insufficient,” says Jacqueline Snelling, chair of the Public Services Committee of the Arlington County Civic Federation, which includes 93 different neighborhood groups. In November, the federation issued a unanimous resolution calling on the county to do more to protect citizens from flooding.
“It needs to be elevated to being a county priority with cross-department participation so that the tools and resources are clearly identified,” says Snelling, a retiree who lives in Lyon Village. “There is a belief this is understaffed as well as under-resourced.”
Ed Cole, a retired federal employee who lives in Westover Village, agrees. “It’s a crisis. We’re only one heavy rainfall away from another disaster,” says Cole, who spent $25,000 on repairs after the July storm left 3.5 inches of water in all six rooms of the first floor of his split-level home.
He blames county inaction on proposed infrastructure improvements for making a bad situation worse. “A sense of urgency would be appreciated,” Cole says. “I don’t get that feeling from [county officials]. They need to be much more attentive to the stormwater infrastructure than they have been.”
Aileen Winquist, watershed outreach program manager at the Arlington Department of Environmental Services, says the issue was on the county’s radar well before last summer’s freak storm. Arlington has been studying how to improve its storm-sewer system and has built several improvement projects since the launch of its 2014 Stormwater Master Plan. It’s added increased sewer pipe capacity in areas with a history of flooding issues, such as sections of John Marshall Drive, North Kensington Street and Ninth Road North, among others. A “green street” project on Williamsburg Boulevard, completed in 2018, introduced new canopy trees and rain gardens to collect runoff. Now engineers and policymakers are looking at the impact of climate change on the overall system.
“It hasn’t been something we haven’t been working on,” says Winquist.
Arlington officials are pushing ahead with a multipronged flood mitigation approach that could cost county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Various studies are in the works, and the county has launched a public education campaign—including workshops for civic associations and homeowners—to help people understand what they can do to protect their homes and businesses.
It’s a complicated endeavor, according to Arlington County Board member and immediate past chair Christian Dorsey. The county needs to upgrade its stormwater pipes, create places for runoff to flow to when those pipes fill up, and make sure new development doesn’t contribute to flooding.
But in order to be effective, the solutions must consider the entire watershed, Dorsey says. That takes time, study and a lot of engineering. Superstorms like the one on July 8 and the intensifying effects of climate change make it impossible to completely flood-proof any place, he says.
“This is one of the quintessential issues you get as a public official—something you are vulnerable to, that you can’t entirely fix by your own actions,” Dorsey says. “We have this incredible sense of urgency to move as quickly as we can.”
Development patterns that started in the middle of the last century have contributed to the flooding problem Arlington now faces. Back then, builders took the streams that crisscrossed the county and channeled them through underground pipes so they could develop the land.
The pipe capacity they installed was designed for the population at the time—not the higher density Arlington that exists today. Infrastructure decisions made in 1950 also didn’t anticipate more intense rainfall driven by global warming.
Now pervasive redevelopment is exacerbating Arlington’s flood risk. Driven by market demand, new homes and buildings are gobbling up green space that used to absorb runoff from heavy storms. Larger homes are occupying bigger footprints on single-family lots. Grassy areas are being replaced with impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways and parking lots.
“It’s worse in Arlington because of the density,” says Rob Groff, president of Groff Landscape Design, who lives in Rosslyn. “We have all these huge roof structures and there’s no place for the water to go.”
Still, some residents are disappointed the county hasn’t moved faster to address flooding that is leaving homeowners with repair bills in the tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes repeatedly.
Cole, of Westover Village, worries the county won’t expand more stormwater pipes because doing so is expensive and difficult. “Climate change is real; the neglect of our stormwater infrastructure also is real,” he says, noting that the water at his back door reached 27 inches high during the July storm. “The combination of the two is disastrous.”
He would like to see rain gauges installed throughout the county, and meters in storm pipes to collect more data about how rain affects different neighborhoods.
Though Westover Village isn’t in a flood zone—it’s categorized as an “area of minimal flood hazard” on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Flood Map—the July flash floods left more than a dozen neighborhood homes underwater and sent rivers gushing through local businesses such as Westover Market & Beer Garden and Ayers Variety & Hardware, causing them to close temporarily.
Waverly Hills resident Keating says issues like obtaining easements (which are required for the county to access private residential property) have gotten in the way of expanding the stormwater system. “It’s taken a back burner because of the difficulty of coming up with engineering solutions,” he says. “Who wants a 30-foot ditch going through their backyard?”
Snelling, of the Arlington County Civic Federation, points out that more than half the county’s $2 million stormwater management budget is devoted to water quality issues that, while important, don’t help mitigate flooding. And though the 2014 Stormwater Master Plan includes more improvement projects beyond the six that have already been completed, she feels the process is moving too slowly. At this rate she doesn’t expect to be alive to see them built.
It doesn’t help that the goalposts keep moving. The accelerating impact of global warming is making it harder to anticipate future needs, says Demetra McBride, chief of the county’s Office of Sustainability & Environmental Management. To do that, county planners intend to identify three watersheds (out of 35 countywide) and estimate the risks/cost of inaction over the next 20 and 50 years.
“It’s to make the case for the types of investments improving the system will require,” McBride says.
Arlington County’s capital improvement plan, which is updated every two years and will be voted on in July, offers a forum for renegotiating what the county spends on flood mitigation. McBride says public hearings are expected.
Not all of the solutions will be complicated or lengthy, she says, and even some longer-term projects could offer quick relief for residents. “People don’t have to wait to see some improvement in the flooding level until all the phases are done.”
But the necessary measures will require more than larger underground pipes; there simply isn’t enough land to solve the problem that way. Another option is the installation of underground water retention areas under county parks and parking lots to hold excess water and release it slowly back into the ground.
“Nature is always going to throw you a larger storm,” McBride says, “which is why we are looking for a more elastic system.”
For homeowners who live in fear of the next big storm, the clock is ticking and tensions are high.
“We would like to see a specific timeline about when steps will start,” Keating says. “This time we’d like the county to stick to the budgeted plan, which they did not last time.”
He says certain projects identified in the county’s 2014 master plan were not done because the funds were diverted elsewhere.
In the meantime, the county’s overtures to homeowners to take it upon themselves to make their homes more resilient have angered some who feel the government is passing the buck.
“When there’s a wall of water coming down the street…you can’t do anything about that as an individual homeowner,” Keating says. Like police, fire and education, stormwater management is the county’s responsibility.
“We all, as citizens, have expectations,” he says. “If the street has a pothole, you expect the county to fix it. If you have 3 feet of water in the streets and it can be fixed, there’s a reasonable expectation the county should do that.”
Some would like to see Arlington apply for help from the Virginia Shoreline Resiliency Fund, a state program that would give flooded property owners access to low-interest loans for flood mitigation repairs. The fund hasn’t yet received any money from the state, but it could eventually help both homeowners and municipalities with upgrades.
Another idea on the table is for the county to buy out some of the properties with the worst flooding problems and use that land for pumping stations or water retention areas in the event of big surges caused by heavy rainfall.
“It makes sense,” says Sandy Newton, president of the Arlington County Civic Federation. “If you don’t want to have this recur, just don’t have the homes there.”
But the implementation of such ideas is tricky. As an example, county board member Dorsey points to a new state law allowing property-tax relief for flood victims, which didn’t offer much direction in figuring out who should be eligible. How does the county make sure the money is spent to harden homes against flood damage, and not just to restore them to their vulnerable state? Who qualifies?
Buying properties that repeatedly flood is an option, Dorsey says, but only if those homes are located in areas where using the land to collect water would help stop flooding on other properties, too. “This is not about relieving someone of property because they’ve had bad flooding events.”
Arlington County sustainability chief McBride worries that this particular idea doesn’t do enough to expand the capacity of the system: “To be honest, it doesn’t seem like a solution. It’s a Band-Aid.”
Newton and her constituents believe the county needs to pay more attention to flood risks when designing public facilities like schools and parks that could impact water flow. She says the county has begun doing a better job of building schools taller, with smaller footprints (thus minimizing the amount of impervious surface) but needs to avoid taking out old-growth trees that absorb water.
Arlington officials are considering strengthening county rules for private development to make sure new homes and buildings don’t compound the threat of flooding.
New homes and large additions already must adhere to certain stormwater management requirements, McBride says, and “we may increase those requirements,” such as mandates for larger water retention areas. The existing rules governing runoff have focused heavily on water quality, she explains, while the new rules would also consider the quantity of water leaving a property.
County officials like to remind residents that their homeowners’ insurance policy doesn’t include protection from most flooding. Flood protection insurance can be bought separately, says Winquist, the county’s watershed outreach program manager, but only 3 percent of Virginia homeowners have it.
Although it’s required for mortgages in high-risk flood zones, about 20 percent of flood claims come from outside official flood plains. And even flood insurance policies are limited in what they cover for basement flooding.
There are preventive measures homeowners can take. Permeable driveways allow water to flow through the hardscape and sink into the earth instead of being redirected down a slope into neighboring homes. Other solutions include dry wells, rain gardens, bio-retention filters, infiltration trenches and French drains—options that involve gravel or other substances underground that give water space to collect until it can drain, explains landscape designer Groff. But these hidden systems often come with sticker shock—especially for homeowners who have already stretched their budgets to buy into one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets.
He says the average amount his clients spend on drainage is about $4,000 to $5,000, although for some it can be tens of thousands of dollars.
“Who wants to spend that much money on drainage?” Groff says. “It’s not like you’re getting a beautiful patio or deck.”
For new construction or major rehabs, homeowners must contend with landscaping rules designed to mitigate flooding. But that can mean being required to plant native species in a rain garden in the middle of the yard, right where they want their kids to play.
Groff says the county exerts less control over smaller renovations, but those can still lead to excess runoff. Something as simple as a misplaced downspout can send cascades of water into neighboring yards. He says many homeowners aren’t enthusiastic about spending thousands to solve a water problem for someone else.
During an October “Flood Resilient Arlington” workshop, attendees pelted county officials with questions about why they weren’t using Arlington’s $23 million budget surplus for flood mitigation.
McBride’s response was that it was too early to start claiming that money, which will have competing demands. “I’m asking for patience,” she said. “I know that’s hard when your home is exposed.”
For some in the audience, the message that homeowners needed to make their properties more flood-resilient in the short-term while the county sorts out a larger, long-term approach wasn’t sitting well.
“The county was talking long-range and the people had just finished stuffing sandbags,” says Arlington County Civic Federation president Newton. “They wanted someone to help right now.”
County board member Dorsey says Arlington is considering a number of funding options, such as borrowing money through bonds, raising fees for stormwater services and possibly turning the stormwater program into a utility.
Planning engineers also need to determine which pipes need to be larger and where to send the overflow during big storms. The cost, he speculates, will be “in the tens of millions of dollars.”
“Arlington has the wherewithal to find ways to pay for this,” Dorsey says. “It’s really understanding what is the strategy that is going to work.”
Flood Facts
• A “500-year flood” doesn’t mean the next flood won’t happen for half a millennium. It means that each year there’s a .2 percent annual flooding chance in a riverine zone. (Some parts of Arlington are in riverine zones.)
• Over the course of a 30-year mortgage, the risk of flood damage is higher than the risk of fire, according to Aileen Winquist, watershed outreach program manager for Arlington County.
• Clogged gutters, impervious pavement and vegetation close to a building increase its risk of flooding. Make sure drains are clear and pumps are working. Below-grade utilities like HVAC systems should be elevated.
• The average flood claim is $43,000, according to State Farm insurance agent Kenya Knight, who has offices in Arlington and Falls Church. Premiums are up to $3,000 a year in high-risk areas; just under $1,000 in moderate-risk areas; and about $500 in other areas.
• Not sure if your property is in a flood zone? Find out at fema.gov.
• More county information is available at arlingtonva.us/flooding.
Freelance writer Tamara Lytle has covered local issues ranging from gun safety to office vacancies in Arlington.