Northeast storm brings extensive flooding to area

storm mobjack — The Rev. Kristie Askew, pastor of Grace-Providence United Methodist Church in Mobjack, points out the tide waters covering the end of East River Road as she takes a stroll through the neighborhood during Sunday’s King Tide. She said she hadn’t seen waters that high in the three+ years she’d been living in the nearby parsonage.

A northeast storm forecast for this past weekend didn’t bring as much rain and wind as expected, but still caused extensive flooding in Gloucester and Mathews because it occurred during a King Tide.

During peak tide on Sunday, water covered the end of Greate Road in Gloucester Point, making access to Gloucester Point Beach Park difficult for vehicles without four-wheel drive, while in Mathews, the public boat ramp and dock on Gwynn’s Island were completely submerged.

The highest wind speed during the storm was 37 mph from north-northwest on Sunday, Oct. 12, while the rain total for the day was 0.98 inch. The rain total for the entire week, all of which occurred during the storm, was 1.22 inches.
Jane Wenner, emergency management coordinator for Gloucester County, said that not having the predicted winds and rain “was great,” but there was still significant flooding in low-lying parts of the county.

“The schools made a good call for the safety of students and staff,” she said, referring the cancellation of classes on Monday. “Areas that don’t usually flood—did.”

Fire and rescue services had “one or two calls” in areas they couldn’t access because of the flooding, she said, but they were able to “figure out a way to get people where they needed to be.”

“I’m grateful to our first responders for going out in that,” she said.

As a community, Gloucester “did well staying out of the water,” said Wenner, with citizens paying attention to safety warnings.

There were some power outages, she said, “but nothing Dominion couldn’t handle really well.

“All together, I’m just really thankful things went as well as they did,” she added.
David Dixon, emergency management coordinator for Mathews, said that there was more significant flooding than expected in low-lying areas of the county because of the King Tide. He said the storm had stalled and had continued to push water inland “and didn’t let it out.”

“Some areas were flooded that hadn’t experienced flooding since Hurricane Isabel” in 2003, he said. “It was more widespread than our normal storms of this nature.”

As of Tuesday, some of the roads in the county were still flooded, Dixon said, and they were expected to have standing water until today.

There were a few downed trees and power outages during the storm, he said, but the fire department and rescue squad were able to get to all of the residents who called for help.