News

Alexandria hosting community meeting on Flood Resilience Plan

By James Cullum
Flooding in Old Town on May 9, 2022, staff photo by James Cullum

Alexandria will host a community meeting next month on the development of the city’s Flood Resilience Plan.

The city will host the meeting from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 10 (Monday), at Patrick Henry Recreation Center (4653 Taney Avenue), and online via Zoom. In the meeting, the city will discuss findings from a recent survey on flooding impacts throughout Alexandria, draft flood model results, and a community vulnerability analysis.

Last fall, Alexandria received a $525,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund to support development of the plan.

Flooding on lower King Street in Old Town. (staff photo by James Cullum)

According to the city:

Several large storms in 2020 and 2021 prompted the immediate need for aggressive action pertaining to flood mitigation which led to the creation of the Flood Action Alexandria initiative.

In 2024, the City was awarded a grant from Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation through the Community Flood Preparedness Fund to support the development of a comprehensive Flood Resilience Plan (FRP), which will expand on the original 2021 Resilience Plan and Flood Action Alexandria effort  to identify hazards, flood mitigation solutions and more.

Through this project, the City will work to assess the scope and scale of flooding affecting people who live and work in Alexandria by identifying areas for further study and interventions. This will ultimately lead to future studies, design, and funding for projects that provide flood mitigation in areas of anticipated recurrent and future flooding.

About the Author

  • Reporter James Cullum has spent nearly 20 years covering Northern Virginia. He began working with ALXnow in 2020, and has covered every story under the sun for the publication, from investigative stories to features and photo galleries. His work includes coverage of national and international situations, as well as from the White House, Capitol, Pentagon, Supreme Court and State Department. He's covered protests and riots throughout the U.S. (including the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol), in addition to earthquake-ridden Haiti, Western Sahara in North Africa and war-torn South Sudan. He has photographed presidents and other world leaders, celebrities and famous musicians, and excels under pressure.