Gaston sized storm would flood Shockoe again

It’s a storm that’s bigger than anything we could ever build and we realized that from the beginning that we were never going to build an infrastructure to make Gaston not happen again.

August 19, 2014; 10:51 AM • by Richard Hayes

Yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of Gaston and the devastation it wreaked on Shockoe Bottom. One merely needs to go into Bottoms Up Pizza and see the line on the wall that shows how the water rose. It was terrifying for residents and devastating for many local businesses.

NBC12 takes a look at what has changed since then and what would happen if a storm like Gaston were to return. The answer is not what you want to hear but the good news is that Gaston was considered a “once in a thousand years” storm so we should be good for another 990 years.

“We can’t do anything about it,” he stated. “It’s a storm that’s bigger than anything we could ever build and we realized that from the beginning that we were never going to build an infrastructure to make Gaston not happen again. The things that we could build are not within the realm of possibility.” (Full video of story)

Image: NBC12