At risk from rising seas, Norfolk, Virginia, plans massive, controversial floodwall
By Katherine Hafner
A section of Norfolk's existing floodwall, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1971. It will be expanded as part of the new project. Katherine Hafner/WHRO hide caption
toggle caption Katherine Hafner/WHROA section of Norfolk's existing floodwall, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1971. It will be expanded as part of the new project.
Katherine Hafner/WHROKim Sudderth loves the "porch culture" of Norfolk's tight-knit Berkley area.
She's lived in the historically Black neighborhood for five years, and knows the names of almost everyone on her block. They often wave to each other over morning coffee.
The community dates back to shortly after the Civil War, and many of the houses – including Sudderth's – are at least a century old. Residents cherish the strong sense of history and community.
But there's a downside: many of the neighborhood's streets flood just about every time it rains.
"It's kind of a way of life," Sudderth said. "We're doing our best to work with the water."
Kim Sudderth, a local climate activist and member of Norfolk's Planning Commission, sits on the porch of her home in the Berkley neighborhood in July. Katherine Hafner/WHRO hide caption
toggle caption Katherine Hafner/WHROKim Sudderth, a local climate activist and member of Norfolk's Planning Commission, sits on the porch of her home in the Berkley neighborhood in July.
Katherine Hafner/WHROOn a recent muggy morning, she pointed to the evidence on her street corner: standing water still pooled from a downpour a few days prior. On rainy days, she said, the flooding can be bad enough that someone might lose their car.
, driven by a combination of warming oceans and sinking land in the region.The city is now moving forward with , in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project will include tide gates, levees, pump stations and nature-based features like oyster reefs and vegetation along the shoreline. It's one of the biggest infrastructure efforts in city history – and an example of projects the Corps has proposed up and down the U.S. coastline, from New York to Texas.
But the $2.6 billion project largely won't protect neighborhoods like Sudderth's from the regular flooding they already experience.
Instead, the project is meant to shield the city from a catastrophic storm. It specifically targets storm surge, the abnormal rush of water generated during major storms like hurricanes.
"We should call it the catastrophe wall or the hurricane wall, because floodwall is kind of a misleading statement," said Jay Ford, Virginia policy advisor with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The nonprofit is one of several local groups reluctantly fighting the project.
and higher sea levels."For a lot of folks in Hampton Roads, sea level rise means the sun is out and you're just trying to get your kid to school but for some reason there is a completely flooded road," Ford said. "This project won't do anything to alleviate that."
Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander signs a Project Partnership Agreement for the floodwall project with Col. Brian Hallberg, commander of the Army Corps' Norfolk District, in June. Katherine Hafner/WHRO hide caption
toggle caption Katherine Hafner/WHRONorfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander signs a Project Partnership Agreement for the floodwall project with Col. Brian Hallberg, commander of the Army Corps' Norfolk District, in June.
Katherine Hafner/WHROSudderth and her neighbors have another concern: The original floodwall design didn't reach several majority-Black communities across the Elizabeth River from downtown Norfolk – including Berkley.
"We're going to be left out," Sudderth said she thought when she first learned about the plan.
Critics say the project exemplifies flaws in how the federal government approaches major flood infrastructure.
And the debates happening in Norfolk are an example of conversations that will increasingly play out across the nation, as climate change imposes major new costs on coastal communities, said Rob Young, a geologist who studies coastal engineering at Western Carolina University.
Local officials need to think hard about how to prioritize limited resources, Young said: "We know we don't have all the money in the world."
For their part, city officials see the floodwall project as a "once in a lifetime opportunity" for Norfolk to protect itself.
Congress recently earmarked $400 million for the project, in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. If the city doesn't take advantage of that federal funding, it could lose its opportunity – and a major hurricane could be disastrous, said Kyle Spencer, the city's chief resilience officer.
"The cost of not doing this is far, far greater than the cost of doing it," Spencer said.
Norfolk's floodwall project is one of many the Army Corps proposed after Hurricane Sandy tore through communities along the East Coast in 2012, causing $65 billion in damage and killing more than 100 people.
It was a wake-up call for the Corps, which has long overseen major flood control projects across the country. Congress directed the agency to study how it could protect coastal communities from the next Sandy.
Michelle Hamor, planning and policy chief with the Corps' Norfolk District, said officials identified areas most at risk from major storms, including Norfolk.
The Corps targeted regions that could experience the costliest damage to homes and businesses, and would benefit from a floodwall-style project.
"We want to tangibly reduce risk," Hamor said. "So we want to focus on those high priority areas where the damage is greatest or repetitive."
An initial rendering of what part of Norfolk's expanded floodwall could look like along the Elizabeth River. City of Norfolk/Army Corps hide caption
toggle caption City of Norfolk/Army CorpsAn initial rendering of what part of Norfolk's expanded floodwall could look like along the Elizabeth River.
City of Norfolk/Army CorpsThe agency's task isn't to stop all flooding, Hamor said. It's to prevent the kind of severe damage to structures that Sandy caused – largely as calculated in dollars.
In other words, under the Corps' formula, the more expensive the damage that a project can prevent, the more that project is worth doing.
That means projects are more likely to protect areas with high property values, said Young with Western Carolina University.
"If your real estate is not worth a lot of money, then the Corps can't protect you," Young said. "It's as if the only thing we value as Americans when we're spending federal money is value. And that's really unfortunate and really problematic."
A section of Norfolk's existing floodwall downtown, built by the Army Corps in 1971. It will be expanded as part of the new project. Katherine Hafner/WHRO hide caption
toggle caption Katherine Hafner/WHROA section of Norfolk's existing floodwall downtown, built by the Army Corps in 1971. It will be expanded as part of the new project.
Katherine Hafner/WHROThat rings alarm bells for Skip Stiles, who recently retired as longtime head of the Norfolk nonprofit Wetlands Watch. He's spent years working to get local officials to take regular flooding seriously, and worries the cost of the floodwall will make it even harder for the city to take action.
expressing similar concerns about the agency's flood protection projects. It argued an approach "that focuses solely on hurricane storm surge is short-sighted and leaves millions of Americans exposed to current and future chronic flood risk."Norfolk residents often assume the floodwall is designed to address their daily flooding problems, Stiles said.
"When they're told that it's not, they go, 'Oh, okay, what's the plan for the rest of it?'" he said. "And that's when the blank stares happen."
Stiles said he's glad the city and Army Corps are planning ahead for catastrophic storms. But he wishes they would also focus on what he sees as an equally existential threat.
It feels, he said, like "the Corps said, 'you want to protect yourselves against the rest of the flooding? That's on you."
