RCA Newsletter: August 2024

6:30 PM Socializing and Q&A with City Council candidates.

7:00 PM Official start of meeting.

RCA has invited the nine candidates for City Council (six Democrats, one Republican, and two independents) to attend and make introductions.

The meeting is at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 100 West Luray Avenue.

Visit the RCA website for the full meeting schedule.

Last month’s storm was the first serious test of the culvert since the repairs.

The storm on July 22nd dropped 1.16 inches of rain in just 45 minutes. Before the repairs, that amount of rainfall would have filled the culvert and overflowed into the neighborhoods. Instead, water flowed out so quickly that two feet of “headroom” were in the culvert.

Compare that to a comparable storm the year before, when the culvert came within inches of overflowing. On August 14, 2023, a storm dropped 0.72 inches of rain in 45 minutes. The surging stormwater was six feet deep in the culvert with no “headroom” if the rain worsened.

The graphs below illustrate this improvement; the data are from the rain gauge at Beach Park and the depth gauge inside the culvert near Linden Street. At the City’s Flood Action website, you can monitor these gauges in real-time (onerain.com).

Although this is good news, these improvements are just the beginning of the work financed by your Stormwater Fee. The multi-year project to create substantially more capacity – and perhaps re-route some of the flow – is being designed. Stay tuned for more updates as the design is developed.

Visit rosemontpelt.com (https://rosemontpelt.com/) to get the latest:
* June issue of the Flood Action Newsletter.
* Update on the Hooff’s Run Culvert Bypass and other stormwater projects.
* Update on Virginia American Water’s replacement of old lead water service lines.