The Mathews County Planning Commission heard a presentation from planning director John Shaw on the recently-completed Recurrent Flooding Study during its Nov. 15 meeting. The study was conducted by the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission.

Shaw pointed out the most relevant parts of the document. While the study provides some information that could be incorporated into county ordinances “to provide benefit,” he said, it offers no “magic bullet.”

The parts of the study that will be most helpful to Mathews County deal with accommodation, protection and preservation, said Shaw.

Accommodation measures include such things as elevating structures, which the county has already undertaken through grants from the federal Hazard Mitigation Grant program, said Shaw. However, Shaw said it would be impossible to elevate all at-risk structures through the program.

Protection measures include such activities as shoreline erosion control, particularly using living...