Roanoke's Major Flood Event

I come from Roanoke, Virginia. In November 1985, we had the worse flooding in the city's history. 6.61 inches of rain fell on the City of Roanoke in a 24 hour period on November 4th. Market Square in downtown Roanoke was approximately 3 to 4 feet underwater. The picture below is Market Square and as you can tell it is flooded quite badly. The Roanoke River runs through the city of Roanoke. It starts at the very end of Wasena Park runs through downtown Roanoke, into the city of Salem.

As you can see we had our fair share of rain during that time period. What was the culprit of this devastation? Hurricane Juan took a pretzel shaped track out of the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall for the second time near Pensacola, Florida on October 31st. The storm moved north and generated other storm systems that produced moderate rainfall across the Roanoke Valley. Saturation was another issue for Roanoke. These storm systems soaked the ground for 5 days, saturating the soil so that it was no longer able to absorb new rainfall.

What set the stage for this epic flooding event? On November 3rd, a low pressure system developed off the coast of Florida and moved steadily north. This system brought with it more moisture, colliding with a cold front coming in from the west and eventually stalling over the area. Prior to and during this stall, the system dumped a record amount of precipitation on the Roanoke Valley and surrounding areas.

There were back water effects as well. This made the flooding worse for the citizens of the valley. Riverine flooding from Lick Run and Trout Run which converge underneath downtown Roanoke, combined with backwater from the Roanoke River worked its way up the railroad tracks, contributing to the severe flooding experienced in Downtown Roanoke.

The water was rising and rapidly. The Roanoke River rose 19 feet in 12 hours cresting at a height of 23.35 feet on November 4th. Thus the devastation and destruction left behind in it's wake. The water was swift and flowed rather quickly. 32,300 cubic feet of water per second moved past the Walnut Bridge Gauge during the flood of '85. The base flow for the Roanoke River at that point is approximately 200 cubic feet per second. That makes the flow during the flood over 160 times the normal flow rate.

There was dangerous debris every where. The Roanoke fire department had to sit and watch a house burn to the ground because they couldn't access the house because of flood waters. Flood waters pick up anything and everything in its path. The flood of '85 displaced homes and vehicles, as well as commercial and agricultural structures. Today some of the impacts are still visible buried in the banks.

This flooding event was classified as a record flooding event. The Flood of '85 was considered a 175 year flood event. This does not mean that this type of flood can only occur every 175 years, it means that there is approximately a 0.57% chance of a flood of this magnitude happening in any given year. It could happen 2 years in a row, or even twice in 1 year.

The cost was astronomical. I was shocked to see the price tag of the recovery of the flood of 1985.

The cost to recover from the Flood of '85 would $ 540,000,000be over half a billion dollars in today's dollars. At the time it cost $200 million to recover from the devastation in the city alone.

The day also had a dramatic helicopter rescue from atop Cundiff's convenience store. This rescue came in the nick of time. The owner insisted on being the last to be rescued. As he was pulled off the building of his store, the river washed it away. I don't know if is shown in the video or not.

You can't have a major catastrophe like this without people being displaced. It is estimated that approximately 3,000 homes and 100 businesses were damaged in the flooding.

Rescue from atop Cundiff's convenience store. The store was a total loss.

This was a historical event for Virginia. Flights were affected and all other forms of transportation. The city has done flood planning and widening of the river banks. We still have flooding issues.

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