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Grace and 31st (2004)
08/19/2014 8:30 AM by John M
A sinkhole caused by heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston in Richmond, Va., is photographed Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004. The unexpectedly downpour led to widespread flooding that left at least five dead and devastated a historic neighborhood.(AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch,Mark Gormus)
I’ll never forget that day. Those minivans were in perfect condition just sitting at the bottom of the pit.
Same with the telephone pole, can’t be seen in this picture, but it was straight up, just 20+ feet lower than it had been.
Ihave a friend who works as a firefighter. She spent much of that day on the truck driving through high water rescuing people who stupidly tried to drive through high water. ANd then discovering this scene really capped her day. She said it was the icing on the cake.
We were trapped in out building at 15th and Cary until almost midnight.
As the 10th year anniversary comes up, they still haven’t repaired the drainage line that was damaged on Libby Hill Park.
That’s one big pothole. I remember it well. I lived just down the street form there in 2003 when Isabel hit, but had moved further away by 2004’s Gaston.
Looks like the photo is dated Aug. 31, 2004. What date did Gaston hit? (Aug. 30?)
@6 Kai,it hit on Monday afternoon and evening, August 30. Don’t know if this link will work, but it’s to an article about it, one picture of a couple of cars piled up. http://airwolf.lmtonline.com/news/archive/090104/pagea8.pdf
Shockoe Bottom took a huge hit from that storm. I remember how I got stuck in traffic downtown, and it took me four hours to get home, normally a fifteen minute drive.I had a neighbor whose car started floating, so she got out and walked home through the nasty dirty water wearing a pair of flip flops she happened to have in the car.
@4 Former Libby Hill Resident, I’m curious, what drainage line are you referring to?
#9 Andy, What block of 27th?
@ # 8
On the curve of the upper level of Libby Hill, if you look down to the cobblestones from Poe’s Pub, you will see a drain that they started working on, but never finished. It crosses the cobblestone road and drains towards main.
They managed to create a huge amount of erosion in the partial repair that is still there to this day.
@11, thanks, I will go look, thought they did all the repairs. I know they did a good deal of work behind the houses on the south side of Libby Terrace, was not aware of anything else.
I was caught in the flood – but I was not stupidly driving in high water. The water rose so fast, that I went from wet pavement on 95 to waist deep water in less than 20 minutes. I had to abandon my car. It was terrifying. I would never drive in high water – I am a scaredy cat about driving anyway. It’s just the water rose so quick, that people stuck in rush trying to get home were overcome before they could even get off the road. This happened on Main Street, even to pedestrians.